Five held in Delhi, Jaipur for forging celebs’ data to avail loans, siphoning off ₹1 crore
Joint commissioner of police (eastern range) Chhaya Sharma said the men cheated companies and banks to the tune of nearly ₹50 lakh. A money trail of around ₹1 crore has been uncovered so far
The Delhi Police on Friday said they busted an interstate gang of cyber criminals who allegedly procured the details of personal identification documents of over 20 celebrities, including Bollywood actors and sportspersons, from their GST numbers available online, and used them to obtain credit cards and loans.
Police said five members of the gang were arrested from Delhi and Jaipur by the cyber cell team of Shahdara district police. They were identified as Vishwa Bhaskar Sharma (42), Sunil Kumar (42), Pankaj Mishra (37), Puneet (25), and Mohammad Asif (32), police said. The arrests were made on February 27 and March 2.
Joint commissioner of police (eastern range) Chhaya Sharma said the men cheated companies and banks to the tune of nearly ₹50 lakh. A money trail of around ₹1 crore has been uncovered so far, she said.
“The gang applied for loans and credit cards using IDs of 95 people between November and February, including 20 celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Mahesh Bhupati, Karan Johar, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Anushka Sharma, Aishwarya Rai, Saif Ali Khan, Hritik Roshan and others. Atotal of 34 forged PANs, 25 Aadhaar cards, 40 debit and credit cards, 42 SIM cards, 10 phones, and five voter IDs were among the items recovered,” Sharma said.
Deputy commissioner of police (Shahdara) Rohit Meena said that on February 23, a complaint was received from Prem Shekhawat of a Pune-based company alleging that they were cheated of ₹21.32 lakh.
The DCP said an address in Delhi’s Babarpur was identified, raided and Sunil Kumar was arrested, with several forged IDs and phones. Kumar’s interrogation revealed he got the IDs from a shop – Indian Online Services – jointly run by Puneet and Mohammad Asif in Babarpur, said Meena.
“Sunil disclosed that he learnt all cyber fraud techniques from Vishwa Bhaskar Sharma, a resident of Jaipur. Vishwa introduced him to Pankaj Mishra. Vishwa and Pankaj were arrested from Jaipur,” added the DCP.
“Their bank statements, phones and laptops are being analysed. The companies are also under investigation regarding their KYC procedure. Further investigation is underway regarding misuse of Aadhar updating process and KYC verification processes of banks by the gang,” joint CP Sharma added.
