Patna: Aurangabad police on Thursday arrested three members of an interstate cyber crime gang that the cops said had also duped Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.

Ajay Kumar Mandal, Bajrangi Mandal and Chhoti Mandal were nabbed from Giridih in Jharkhand, and Aurangabad superintendent of police (SP) Satya Prakash said they were part of the gang that had siphoned off Rs 75 lakh from Shah Rukh's bank accounts in 2013. The actor had come to Jharkhand by helicopter to speak to the cops about progress in the case.

The racketeers also fraudulently transferred an undisclosed sum of money from the accounts of the wife of a Haryana-cadre Indian Police Service officer. In Aurangabad district alone, at least 15 cases were pending in which the gang's hand is suspected.

SP Satya Prakash said that since the arrested persons were wanted in Giridih, they were produced in the local court. "The Aurangabad police will take the trio on police remand for interrogation," the SP said from Aurangabad, around 100 km south of Patna.

He revealed the modus operandi of the gang.

"They call up people posing as bank officials on any pretext, say, linking the Aadhaar number to the account, and ask for card details. Sometimes they even warn not to give the ATM PIN and say 'we are sending you an OTP (one-time password) from the bank and you have to confirm the OTP number. Unfortunately, even educated people get convinced and duped," he said.

Every member of the gang makes 250 calls on average per day, said sub-inspector Rajesh Kumar, who was part of the investigation team. Another gang was assigned to arrange fake identity proofs to buy SIM cards from Kolkata.

SP Satya Prakash said a special cyber unit is being set up at the district headquarters. Though cases would be registered at the police stations, copies of the FIRs would be sent to the cyber crime unit to start investigations.

Last week, director-general of police (DGP) K.S. Dwivedi had announced that cyber crime and social media monitoring units would be set up in every district.

Computer sets and other gadgets were provided to the SPs. Constables and officers also participated in a workshop in Patna.

Ahilyapur and Buddhadih localities in Giridih and Karmatar, a sleepy town in Jamtara in Jharkhand, have emerged as cyber crime hotspots.

Records at the Karmatar police station reveal that between April 2015 and March 2017, police teams from 12 states visited the station 23 times and arrested around 38 persons.

Deputy superintendent of police (cyber cell) Sandeep Kumar Shamdarshi said that over 80 cases were registered by the Jamtara district police between July 2014 and July 2017 against 330 residents of the area.