Jagran correspondent, Azamgarh. Cyber police station has arrested an inter-district cyber criminal who was committing fraud in the name of Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, providing loans at cheap rates to personal and women groups and getting projects passed in small scale industries from Jivali of Bardah police station area.
The accused has been identified as Praveen Gaur, resident of Gochharan, police station Bansgaon, district Gorakhpur. Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Rural Chirag Jain said that five SIM cards of Punjab, three smart phones and a mobile phone with a keypad, which were used in fraud, have been recovered from the accused.
ASP said that in order to deceive people, accused Praveen used to publish advertisements in newspapers under different names for getting loans at cheap interest rates. It was also written in the advertisement to beware of swindlers and fraudsters. In the published advertisement he used to give numbers of different states. When contacted, the accused used to demand money from people in fake accounts in the name of processing fees, file charges and office expenses. After contacting people, he used to send thank you text messages and e-mails from fake Gmail accounts of the Finance Minister (financedepartment786@gmail.com and futurefinance@gmail.com). Due to which people were confident that their loan would be approved.
ASP Rural told that the accused Praveen alone had committed the crime of defrauding Rs 50 lakh from Sanjay Patel, a resident of Gujarat. To trap Sanjay, a fraud was done in the name of providing two percent interest rate and 50 percent subsidy. ASP said that Praveen used to make people of Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana his victims. In order to make the accused people believe, he would pretend to be an administrative officer, lawyer or bank manager and talk on the phone.
Police of cyber station was tracing for six months
Prateek Pundkar of Amravati district of Maharashtra had filed a fraud complaint on the NCRP portal. After finding the location of the fraud number in Azamgarh, the case was transferred to the cyber cell of the district. When the Cyber Cell team started investigating, Praveen's name came to light. Praveen lived in a rented house in Jivali of Bardah police station area. He had also told his name wrong to the people around him.
He used to get the cheated money from those public service centers where there was no CCTV. Due to the use of SIM from another state, the police faced a lot of difficulty in taking the CDR and tracing the accused. To arrest Praveen, the cyber police station must have raided him about ten times in six months, but every time he managed to escape by dodging the police. ASP Chirag Jain told that 10th pass Praveen earlier worked in an NGO based in Delhi. From there he stole all the data and mobile numbers of the people and took it with himself to Azamgarh.
The arrested cyber criminal Praveen has so far committed fraud worth crores of rupees with more than 52 people. The cyber team is assessing the other members involved in the gang and the amount of fraud. - Chirag Jain, Additional Superintendent of Police Rural.