Three people have been arrested for allegedly scamming online gamers across the country through illegal pre-hosted gaming websites, police said.

Shriyansh Chandrakar, Ayush Dewangan and Yash Ganvir were operating from Raipur, Chhattisgarh and Bengaluru, they said. Police said they were duping people by luring them to place bets on online games such as snooker, casino, cricket, poker, and Teen Patti on fake gaming websites. The victims were initially paid small amounts to prove the authenticity of the gaming website and to gain trust.

The three men were arrested after a Sub Inspector from Cyber Police Station disguised himself as Swiggy delivery boy and went to the place from they ran their scam to deliver food to prevent them from destroying the evidence and case property, police said on Wednesday. Police had launched a probe into the matter on the basis of a complaint by an employee of a renowned IT firm, who was duped of Rs 1,49,000 playing the same games.

According to police, the gang members used several forged SIM cards and mobile phones for calling purposes, and even represented themselves as customer care executives of the fake websites.

The accused continuously changed their location from Bengaluru in Karnataka to Raipur in Chhattisgarh, and also Delhi to evade arrest.

Elaborating on the scam, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said the victims were asked to register themselves on gaming websites and deposit money to purchase coins to play games.

"The cheated amount was transferred to accounts of various banks," Kalsi said.

Police, when they analysed the call records of the suspects, found that their locations kept changing from Durg, Bhilai, and Raipur in Chhattisgarh, to Bengaluru and Delhi.

The officer said police tried arresting the members of the gang in Chhattisgarh mounting a technical surveillance, but they could not do it as they used fake SIM cards.

Later, police found that the accused had moved from Chhattisgarh to Delhi, where they were finally arrested.

Shriyansh Chandrakar during questioning revealed that he had gone to Bengaluru to pursue a hotel management course from IHM, Bengaluru, where he met Raj, police said.

Raj told him that he had various online gaming websites which he used to dupe people and was earning quick money. Lured by the prospect, Chandrakar, along with his friend Ayush Dewangan and Yash Ganvir, joined Raj and started working from his hometown in Chhattisgarh.

"The accused used to purchase illegal fake online gaming websites from Raj. These websites contain various games for which a registration amount was asked from victims. The complainant was paid back small amounts to gain their trust and allure them to play more games. On winning the games the amount keeps on piling in the virtual e-wallets of the complainant, but the amount is never paid back to the complainant," Kalsi said.

Seven phones, eight debit cards, credit cards, two laptops, and eight fake SIM cards were recovered from the possession of the three accused.

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