Judicial remand for 'virtual conmen'
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, July 04 2022:
The Chief Judicial Magistrate Imphal West has remanded two non-local virtual 'conmen' to judicial custody till July 18 .
The two con men were brought to Imphal in an Air India flight on June 28 by a team of Cyber Crime Police led by Sub Inspector Bhubonchandra from New Delhi after taking transit remand from a Court at Rajasthan on June 25 .
They were arrested by a team of Manipur Cyber Crime Police and Aravali Vihar Police on June 24 last from Kakrali Road, Alwar district Rajasthan.
Accused Jakar Khan (25) s/o Hurmat Khan and Fakru (29) s/o Fajur, both from Kakrali village Rajasthan were produced before the Court by a team of Cyber Crime Police Station on completion of their police custody period along with a prayer to remand them to judicial custody.
The IO of the case through APP submitted that on June 17 last, one RK Dinesh of Khoyathong Polem Leikai reported that he encountered an advertisement published by one Vikas Patel, who claimed to be a CISF officer posted at Imphal Airport on Facebook on June 1 .
In the advertisement, Vikas Patel said that he was selling his household items as he had been transferred to another place.
RK Dinesh was interested in the advertisement and accordingly shared his Whatsapp number with the conman who provided him the details of the account opened at Equitas Small Finance Bank Limited in the name of Somanath Rajabhau Patil.
As demanded by the conman, the complainant paid 10 per cent (Rs 75,000) of the total cost of all the items he was supposed to purchase on June 17 .
The fraud gave another mobile number, supposedly of a delivery boy along with the details of the consignment but the delivery boy asked RK Dinesh to transfer more money virtually.
Accordingly, Dinesh deposited Rs 1,89,500 through multiple transactions from his account but no items/articles were delivered to him.
The delivery boy again demanded Rs 75,000 .
It was at this point a case was registered for investigation, the APP said.
During interrogation, accused Jakar Khan revealed that he along with Fakur and Arshad created a fake Facebook account impersonating as CISF personnel by using their mobile phone and posted different advertisements of household items at a very attractive price for sales.
Fakur also revealed that he had swindled money from others too by taking help from his associates.
He said that most of the youth at Kakrali, Alwar district Rajasthan are engaged in cyber fraud activities.
Fakur also revealed that most of his associates are illiterate but trained to use mobile applications to commit cyber frauds.
The IO submitted that mobile phones of the accused are required to be sent to competent authority for forensic examination and the extracted information needs to be sent to National Cyber Crime Reporting Patrol to ascertain if the accused are involved in similar crimes reported in other States.
The Court on perusal of the case record and after hearing the submission of the IO sent the accused to judicial custody till July 18 .