Cyber gang busted; 3 held

Hyderabad: The Cyber Crime Police of Cyberabad claimed to have busted a cheating racket by arresting three persons hailing from Bihar for duping a woman into paying Rs 1.76 lakhs promising to send a parcel containing gold jewellery and I-Phones.

Police recovered 20 debit cards and cheque books of various banks, voter ID cards and pan cards, eight cell phones and cash of Rs 1.1 lakh from possession of suspects. Based on a complaint lodged by N Srilatha, 32, of Nagole on June 20, police registered a case and started investigation. During the course of investigation it came into light that the complainant had deposited money in the ICICI bank in Gachibowli branch.

In the complaint, Srilatha mentioned that Bryan Peter, who introduced himself through Facebook, had had promised to send a parcel containing gold jewellery and I-Phones for he asked to pay Rs 34,000 towards customs clearance charges. She had paid the money in the bank account furnished by him. Later the accused again asked her to pay Rs 1.76 lakh towards some anti-terrorist fund which she had paid. But as the accused started demanding more money from Srilatha and she lodged a complained with the police, said Additional DCP (Crimes) G Janaki Sharmila.

Acting on a tip-off, police arrested Rahat Ali alias Shyam Varma, 26, Md Tanveer Ansari alias Kawis Raja, 27, and Shah Hussain alias Shabeem Hussain, 26, in connection with the cheating case.

The accused used to make friends with gullible thorugh Face Book, offer them lucrative gold and other article and ask them to pay money towards custom clearance. Using voter IDs and pan cards, they opened current and saving accounts in Gachibowli in banks like ICICI, HDFC, Axis, SBI and BOB, the Additional DCP said.