3 held for cheating people by posing as govt official facilitating ‘Omicron booster dose’

The Delhi Police has arrested three men who allegedly cheated people by posing as government officials facilitating booster dose to fight COVID-19 and hacking their WhatsApp account, officials said on Monday. ”On the pretext of facilitating an Omicron booster dose”, the men used to hack the WhatsApp accounts by luring the victims to share the OTP of changing the account code through a conference call, according to the police.

After hacking the WhatsApp account, they would access the victim’s contact list, send distress messages to the relatives and acquaintances and demand money. The accused has been identified as Manish Kumar, Rohit Singh and Kaushlendra Singh Tomer, police officials said.

The police also seized eight bank accounts, four Debit Cards, a chequebook and as many as six mobile phones, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations) KPS Malhotra.

The action was taken on the basis of a complaint. The complainant alleged that somebody hacked into his WhatsApp account and sent several messages to his friends and relatives, he said.

”The brother of the complainant deposited Rs 50,000 in the fraudster account through UPI. During the probe, it was found that 20 more such complaints were lodged on the cyber-crime portal pertaining to this network. ”On the above-said complaint, a case was registered under appropriate sections of law at PS- Special Cell, Delhi,” Malhotra said. During investigation, technical, physical and financial analysis was undertaken and the main caller was identified as Manish Kumar. A raid was conducted in Agra and he along with two of his associates — Singh and Tomer — were arrested, the officer said.

”During investigation, Manish Kumar, the kingpin, disclosed that about one year ago, he learnt techniques of WhatsApp hacking from Youtube and thereafter he used to cheat innocent persons on different pretexts. ”During the Covid pandemic, he used to call the victims and pretended to be from the vaccination department and would ask the victims to fix dates for the booster dose. To circumvent the possibility of the victim getting aware of the scam, he would induce the victim to make a conference call rather than getting the code on the message,” Malhotra said. Once the account was hacked, they would send distress messages to their relatives and ask them to send money through various financial channels, he said.

The police said Manish was also involved in three more cases relating to outraging the modesty of women and further investigation is underway.