Now Reading: Stolen phone of 88-year-old leads to 9 arrests in cyber fraud ring
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Stolen phone of 88-year-old leads to 9 arrests in cyber fraud ring
Delhi police have arrested nine people in an interstate cyber-fraud network after an 88-year-old man from West Patel Nagar reported his phone stolen on May 19. When he got a new SIM…
The Story in Brief
Delhi police have arrested nine people in an interstate cyber-fraud network after an 88-year-old man from West Patel Nagar reported his phone stolen on May 19. When he got a new SIM two days later, Rs 70,000 had been taken from his account in three unauthorised transactions. An FIR was registered on July 23.
Police say the syndicate had three stages: street-level thieves stole phones, a group in Meerut and Ghaziabad supplied mule accounts and SIM cards, and a Jaipur team used the devices to drain victims' money. Raids at a Jaipur residence and in Meerut and Ghaziabad yielded laptops, 52 phones, 70 debit cards, 145 SIM cards, 6 POS machines and Rs 4 lakh in cash. Main operator Nikhil Soni (26) is among those held. The network has been linked to 19 complaints on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.
The Indian Opinion
This story is being spun as a detective triumph, and the police did well. But the real scandal is that an entire call-centre-like setup in Jaipur, supplied by mule accounts from Meerut and Ghaziabad, operated long enough to link to 19 complaints across states. The National Cyber Crime Helpline exists, yet the victim had to wait two months for an FIR. The test is not how many arrests happen after a stolen phone is traced, but how many such syndicates are caught before they bleed a senior citizen's savings.
Sources (2): ndtv.com, rediff.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources.
