A group of 16 men from Jamtara, Giridih and Dhanbad, all in Jharkhand, have been arrested in Kolkata for allegedly being in collusion with a tele-calling racket in Jamtara that had duped many people of lakhs of rupees over the years.
Police said the 16 had been camping in Kestopur and Rajarhat in northeast Kolkata, from where they were collecting phone numbers and pre-activated SIM cards and withdrawing money from ATMs.
An officer said this was possibly the first time members of a Jamtara gang were found operating so close to Kolkata. So far, all Jamtara accused were arrested in various pockets of Jharkhand.
The Telegraph had reported that a large number of online frauds linked to Jamtara were carried out using SIM cards issued in South 24-Parganas, Nadia and Murshidabad.
“We have seized 188 ATM cards of various banks, 78 mobile phones and six laptops from the accused. They were all hiding in the Shapoorji and Dashadrone areas in Rajarhat,” said an officer of the anti-bank fraud section of the detective department of Kolkata police.
The police said the accused were calling up people at random and asking them to share their bank account or debit card details saying the cards were about to be blocked.
The accused would also tell people answering their calls that they had won a lottery and would need to share their account or card details to get the money.
“Once the details were shared, the fraudsters transferred money from the account through multiple e-wallets to an account from where they could withdraw the money through ATMs or spend it on online transactions,” an officer said.
“The people arrested in Kolkata used to withdraw money through ATMs and also buy goods online that were delivered at addresses at Shapoorji and Dashadrone.”
Another officer said that in recent months they came across traces of the presence and activities of a Jamtara gang in and around Kolkata. “We found that goods bought online through fraudulent transactions were being delivered at addresses in Kestopur and Rajarhat. We also tracked down ATM transactions at the end of money trails to places on the outskirts of the city,” the officer said.
The 16 accused were produced in court and remanded in police custody till September 16.