Bokaro, July 17: Jharkhand Police arrested 16 alleged cyber criminals in separate operations conducted in Bokaro and Deoghar districts, dismantling two cyber fraud networks and recovering mobile phones, SIM cards, bank documents and cash, officials said on Thursday.
In Bokaro, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) conducted a raid at the Bari Co-operative area under the Sector-12 police station limits following intelligence inputs received through the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Pratibimb App.
The operation was led by Headquarters DSP Pawan Kumar and CDR DSP Ram Pravesh Kumar.
Nine accused, including a Bokaro resident and several persons from Bihar’s Patna, Buxar and Jamui districts, were arrested during the raid.
All the accused were produced before a court and remanded to judicial custody.Police seized 10 mobile phones, 19 SIM cards, 18 bank passbooks, three cheque books, 10 debit cards and ₹43,100 in cash from the accused.
The recovered materials are suspected to have been used in cyber fraud activities.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the gang was allegedly operated by a handler based in Nawada district of Bihar, while one of the accused had arranged rented accommodation in Bokaro, from where the group had been carrying out cyber fraud for the past two months.
In a separate operation in Deoghar, police arrested seven alleged cyber criminals from the Pathrol police station area as part of an ongoing anti-cyber crime drive.
The action was carried out under the direction of Superintendent of Police Praveen Pushkar and supervised by Cyber DSP Kailash Prasad Mahto.
According to police, the accused allegedly posed as customer care executives of major digital platforms, including Flipkart, Amazon, PhonePe and Google Pay, to deceive victims and obtain sensitive banking information for financial fraud.
Police said further investigation is underway to identify other members of the network, trace financial transactions and determine the full extent of the cyber fraud operations.
