Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Stolen cell phones have become a new tool for mobile swapping gangs to try their luck in online frauds as well, claimed the Crime branch officials after busting two gangs engaged in online fraud. On Monday, TT Nagar police had laid hands on another gang from Uttar Pradesh, which used to make away with people’s cell phones on the pretext of selling mobile covers.
Crime branch officials stated these two gangs, operating from Uttar Pradesh, have contacts with numerous such cyber fraudsters based in Delhi that run online rackets and dupe people of their hard-earned money. The mobile swapping gangs make away with people’s handsets and then sell them over to gangs, who use it for cyber frauds. This helps them to conceal their identity and makes it tough for cops to trace them.
Officials went on to say cyber criminals have been following this modus operandi and in the last one year as many as 1106 such cases have been reported in Bhopal. When the probe was launched into it, it came to fore that in 548 such cases, the mobile thieves either sold the stolen cell phones to inter-state gangs based in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh or themselves got into cybercrime.
The officials said that for mobile-lifters, dismantling the stolen handsets and then selling their parts was not lucrative as it brought merely Rs 2000-3000 per handset. Rather making use of the stolen cellphones for cyber frauds turned out to be more rewarding. These small-time mobile thieves have made a huge amount in the cyber world by operating rackets for duping people in the name of UPI, instant loan, jobs, and social media frauds.
Several officials, on condition of anonymity, said that cyber criminals are persevering in their efforts to outsmart the gadgets available at cyber forensic laboratory, to be able to dodge police action and go untraced.
Reporting mobile thefts instantly the only way: ACP
Assistant Commissioner of police (Cyber crime), Sujeet Tiwari, said that rapidly changing modus operandi of cyber criminals was definitely an issue of grave concern. In case of mobile thefts, immediately reporting the incident to the police or cyber cell would help immensely in checking the cyber crimes.
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