Bank accounts of poor used in courier frauds, 2 nabbed

Pune: The city’s cyber police have arrested two men on the charge of luring people from financially weaker backgrounds to rent their bank account details in exchange for money. These details were then being passed on to cybercrooks for money transfer purposes in courier frauds.
Police have identified the arrested accused as Naresh Jain alias Sureshbhai Desai (32), a resident of Saswad, and Azhar Atik Khan (23) of Bharuch in Gujarat.
Courier frauds refer to crooks calling their victims by claiming that they represent a global courier firm. They typically tell the victims that a foreign-bound parcel, with the latter’s name as sender and containing cash, drugs, some passports, foreign currencies or other contraband material, has been intercepted at the office, adding that the police are pursuing the matter against the sender.
Under the pretext of enabling the victim to avoid criminal prosecution, the crooks then make the victim transfer money to various accounts. The callers also pose as Mumbai crime branch officials during such frauds.
Pune cyber police have registered at least 30 such frauds this year and are now investigating the arrested duo’s role in these frauds.
“The main culprits though, remain at large,” senior inspector Meenal Patil of the cyber police told TOI, adding, “We arrested Khan on Friday, while Desai was arrested two weeks ago. The two are in police custody till December 13.”
Preliminary investigations have indicated that the main callers or beneficiaries of these scams are either based in Dubai or in China, the officer further said.
“Both Desai and Khan are school dropouts. Desai hails from Rajasthan and keeps moving between Saswad, Surat and Ahmedabad. Their modus operandi involves helping poor people open bank accounts and then luring them into renting the bank account details for a trivial sum of money. This way, they have managed to secure the details of many bank accounts in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and other states,” she said.
The duo was arrested in a case registered in September this year, in which fraudsters cheated a woman to the tune of Rs3 lakh.
“They called this victim claiming to be senior police officers who intercepted a parcel sent to Taiwan, in which drugs were found,” said Patil, adding, “During the probe, we located the bank accounts and ascertained from where they were operated. We soon realized that these accounts were being operated from Gujarat and after honing in on their locations, we nabbed the suspects.”