Delhi: Export firms duped of crores in online fraud

NEW DELHI: The cyber cell of Delhi Police has busted a gang that allegedly stole duty rebate licences of export firms worth Rs 3.4 crore by fraudulently generating digital signature certificate keys of more than 100 companies. Seven people have been arrested.
DCP (cyber cell) Anwesh Roy said a probe was initiated after they received complaints last year from four garment export firms alleging that their licences had been stolen from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) website and sold to multiple beneficiaries.
Investigations also revealed that the DGFT empanelled firms tasked with the key generation were not properly verifying documents of the firms applying for the keys.
One of the accused, a chartered accountant from Pune, has been arrested from Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh while others are residents of Delhi-NCR, said Roy. The gang operated across the country through export-import agents and around 107 such incidents have been detected, Roy added. The accused used fake documents and during video verification, impersonated themselves as company directors to get the digital key, said an officer.