THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Ranchi, July 20: The Special PMLA court in Ranchi today convicted five notorious cyber frauds from Jamtara in Jharkhand for laundering money acquired by duping people across the country.
It is perhaps the first such conviction of an organized cyber fraud case. The youths from Jamtara, whom the court of Prabhat Kumar Sharma held guilty and sent to jail, included Pradeep Kumar Mandal, Pintu Mandal, Ganesh Mandal, Ankush Kumar Mandal and Santosh Mandal. The quantum of the sentence will be announced on Tuesday.
Notably, Jamtara is a small sleepy city that has gained notoriety in cybercrime and is known as the cyber capital of the country.
ED filed chargesheet in 2019
The ED had been probing the case since 2018 after the Jamtara SP referred the FIR lodged in this case in 2015/2016 for investigation in 2018.
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The central agency submitted the ECIR (chargesheet) in 2019 and thereafter these frauds were put to trial. In its chargesheet, the ED said that they had unusual deposits in their bank accounts from New Delhi and other distant places in the country. They have also constructed several houses in Jamtara.
Cyber criminals’ modus operandi
About the modus operandi, Ganpati Mandal told the ED that Pradeep Mandal and Pintu Mandal used to gather customers’ phone numbers from the internet. He after that called the bank customers in the guise of the bank manager to illegally obtain ATM/bank account details for subsequent transferring of funds to themselves. They used other means also to elicit information regarding details of customers’ ATMs.
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Ankush Mandal also disclosed that they used to call clients exposing themselves as a bank manager and received ATM numbers by telling a lie that ATM cards were likely to be blocked and get the ATM card numbers. Thereafter OTPs were generated and once after receiving the OTPs from the clients, amounts were transferred from the clients’ accounts to Paytm, Vodafone, and other wallet apps and thereafter the same was transferred to his HDFC bank account.
Gujarat police had also arrested Ankush, a habitual offender, in a case related to cybercrime.
