Five cyber crooks held, cash recovered

Varanasi: In a major breakthrough ,the joint team of crime branch and cyber cell of police on Monday nabbed five cyber criminals involved in withdrawing money from the bank accounts of several people.
Mau SP Anurag Arya announced a cash award of Rs. 25,000 for the police team for this remarkable achievement.
According to reports, the gang was on the radar of police after a local resident Manoj Sharma had lodged a complaint that an amount of Rs.9.5 lakh was withdrawn fraudulently from his bank account.
Acting on a tip-off, the police nabbed five members of the gang including the kingpin in an SUV near Awrava check post on Jiyanpur-Doharighat Road on Monday. The police recovered three laptops, hard device, Wi-Fi hotspot and Rs. 19,4000 from them.
During interrogation, they confessed their involvement in crime. Besides Manoj’s account, they had also withdrawn money from the accounts of many other people in Azamgarh district. They disclosed that they used to make clones of the thumb impressions of people to get their Aadhaar card numbers and bank details. The thumb impressions were procured with the help of the two operators of Jan Seva Kendra, who were also arrested.
The police also recovered machine used in clone making, chemical, negatives, thumb impression, and seals of bank officials from the shop of Sonu Sharma alias Vinay Sharma.
The mastermind of the gang, Rahul Khatri, had made a digital banking wallet on the basis of fake identity. The money was transferred to this wallet from the bank accounts of other people. They had also purchased two cars with this earning.
The arrested persons included Khatri of Ghosi (Mau), Sonu Sharma alias Vinay Sharma of Sidhari (Azamgarh), Tribhuvan Chauhan of Ghosi (Mau), Sudeep Yadav of Atraulia (Azamgarh), and Virendra Yadav of Nizamabad (Azamgarh).