Assam: Two cyber fraudsters arrested for duping people by offering fake loans

Guwahati, Sep 7 (IANS) In a major breakthrough against cybercrime, the Crime Branch of Assam Police has arrested two alleged fraudsters accused of duping people through fake loan offers and siphoning off crores of rupees, officials said on Sunday.

The accused have been identified as Dipankar Das of Nagarbera and Ranjit Kashyap alias Ranjit Tayung.

They were nabbed in the early hours of Sunday from the Garchuk area of Guwahati, police stated.

According to police, the duo had been operating a well-organised cyber fraud racket.

They targeted victims with promises of hassle-free loans, opened multiple current accounts under forged identities and used these accounts to launder the money collected through scams.

In one case alone, the accused allegedly defrauded a victim of Rs 78 lakh.

A case had been registered in connection with the racket, following which the Crime Branch launched a sustained probe. During the operation, police seized a huge cache of incriminating materials from the duo’s possession, underscoring the scale and sophistication of the racket.

The recoveries include 34 ATM cards, 25 bank passbooks, 27 cheque books, 23 identity cards, three scanners, eight SIM cards, two laptops, two notebooks, two purses and three seal pads. Police further revealed that the accused had forged documents belonging to at least 79 individuals.

These were allegedly used to open current accounts in the names of unsuspecting people. The duo then sold these accounts to cybercrime syndicates, enabling them to carry out large-scale frauds across states.

“Preliminary findings suggest the racket had pan-India links. The arrested men were also wanted in several cases registered in Telangana, which indicates the wider reach of their criminal operations,” a senior police officer said.

Cybercrime has emerged as a growing challenge for law enforcement agencies in Assam, with fraudsters frequently exploiting loopholes in banking and digital systems to dupe unsuspecting people.

Police said further interrogation of the accused is underway to identify their associates and dismantle the larger network behind the scam. The arrests, officials added, mark a significant step in the state’s continuing crackdown on organised cyber fraud.

--IANS

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