MP: Four college students held for allowing 'digital arrest' fraudsters to use bank account

INDORE: Police in Madhya Pradesh's Indore on Tuesday arrested four college students for allegedly allowing a gang, involved in duping people by intimidating them under the pretext of 'digital arrest', to use the bank account of one of them for financial transactions, an official said.

These students gave the details of the bank account to the gang of cyber fraudsters to earn commission, he said. Talking to reporters, Crime Branch's Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Rajesh Kumar Tripathi, said the arrested accused have been identified as Rohan Shakya, Ayush Rathore, Nilesh Gorele and Abhishek Tripathi. All the four accused are college students.

One of them is a student of B Tech (computer science) and two others are students of Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), he said.

Shakya and Rathore are residents of Sehore, while Gorele and Tripathi belong to Bhopal, the DCP said. Tripathi said that Rs 15 lakh, earned by cyber fraudsters by duping people, was transferred to Shakya's bank account, out of which an amount of Rs 10 lakh was withdrawn.

Shakya's interrogation led to the identification of three other accused, who were allegedly involved in providing the bank account details to the cyber fraud syndicate on a commission basis, he said.

Also read Delhi University postpones exams for law students after protests over schedule

New bank account was opened for online fraudsters

As per the probe, Shakya opened an account in a bank and made it available to his companion Rathore to get commission from online fraudsters. Rathore gave the account details to Gorele, who in turn provided it to Tripathi. The details were then given to other associates, the DCP added. Rs 5 lakh were found deposited into Shakya's bank account. Transactions of this bank account have stopped, he said.

"The gang members take complete control of the bank accounts after acquiring them on a commission basis. Even the person in whose name the account has been opened does not come to know later what kind of transactions are taking place through this account," he said.

The four accused were arrested on the basis of leads provided by the investigation into the case of fraudulent "digital arrest" of a 59-year-old woman from Indore and duping her of Rs 1.60 crore, he said. Seven persons from different states have already been arrested in connection with the case, the DCP added.

"Digital arrest" is the new form of cyber fraud. In such cases, thugs posing as law enforcement officials intimidate people with audio or video calls and hold them hostage digitally in their own homes on the pretext of arrest and make them pay money for their release.