3 held for cheating bank account holders by getting their SIM cards reissued with fake IDs

Three people have been arrested for allegedly cheating hundreds of HDFC bank account holders after getting their SIM cards reissued on fake identities, police said on Thursday.

The accused, identified as Sunny Kumar Singh (27), Kapil (28), and Pavin Ramesh (21), were arrested on June 20, while another member Rakesh is absconding, they said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said they recovered 12 SIM cards, five mobile phones, eight debit cards, and two fake Aadhaar cards from the accused, and also identified three bank accounts involved in the fraud. Two fake bank accounts which were used to transfer money were also identified and are being scrutinized, he said.

Sunny, who works at the credit card sales department of a bank in Rohini, collected details of mobile numbers, e-mail, addresses, and ID proofs linked to the bank accounts. Meanwhile, Kapil, Pavin, and Rakesh made fake ID proofs with these details and reissued SIM cards of the phone numbers linked with the accounts.

Kalsi said, ”Our team which had been working for two weeks finally zeroed in on the location of accused persons at Jain Nagar in Rohini.” An HDFC account holder, Ajeeh, in his complaint filed in May alleged that he received a message regarding the reissuing of his SIM card and password change of his Gmail ID. Later, he found that his SIM card was reissued, and upon checking his HDFC account statement, he found that a loan of Rs 11 lakh was taken from his account and Rs 1,00,000 was transferred from the loan amount to another account, the senior officer said.

Through the money trail and technical analysis of call records, raids were conducted at Jain Nagar and the accused were arrested, the DCP said. Efforts are being made to nab Rakesh, he said.

An FIR was registered under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code at Cyber North District police station, he added.