Man arrested for deceiving more than 2,500 people by offering phones on EMI (Representation)
New Delhi:
A 32-year-old man has been arrested in Ghaziabad for allegedly deceiving more than 2,500 people under the pretext of getting them cellphones on EMI (monthly installments) through bogus websites, police said today.
Defendant Jitender Singh has revealed to police that he and his associates – Praveen Kumar and Rajat Shukla – are deceiving people by offering to provide cell phones in easy monthly installments.
However, after taking a small down payment from them, they would disappear, police said, adding that Jitender Singh confessed to deceiving more than 2,500 people across the country in this way.
Police said efforts were being made to locate associates of Jitender Singh, Praveen Kumar and Rajat Shukla.
The case came to light when an investigation was opened on January 9 into the complaint of an Irfan Pathan, who alleged that in December of last year he wanted to buy a mobile phone and stumbled across a site Web – www.mobilityworld.in – which offered on IMEs at cheap rates, police said.
In order to make a purchase, he was asked to deposit Rs 1,499 per virtual private address (VPA) “paymobile @ upi”.
He was then contacted by the website executives who asked him to deposit extra money to have the cell phone delivered.
He deposited Rs. 5,998 in three VPA transactions provided by the site executive. But he has neither a cell phone nor returned his money, according to the complainant.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East) RP Meena said that during the investigation, contact details for the cell phone numbers mentioned on the website and those provided by the complainant were obtained.
By analyzing the call details log, it was found that one of the cell phone numbers used by the accused was registered in the name of Rajat Shukla.
By analyzing the details of VPA “paymobile @ upi”, it was found that it was linked to a bank account of Rajat Shukla.
However, the money from said bank account was immediately credited to Jitender Singh’s account, he said.
Jitender Singh was later arrested at his home in Ghaziabad on Tuesday and two cell phones he used to commit a crime were sized, he added.
During questioning, he revealed that over the past two years, he and his associates had deceived people through three bogus websites created by them, police said.
They changed their configuration and the domain name of websites to avoid detection and took money through the virtual private address to make detection difficult, they added.
“They often took small amounts of Rs 1,999 to Rs 7,999 so that the victim did not approach the police,” the DCP said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
