Ghaziabad Man Duped Rs 16 Lakh Online Using Fake Aadhaar And Closed Mobile Number

In a strange case of forgery, cybercriminals swindled Rs 16 lakh from the bank account of a resident of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, using fake Aadhaar number and a closed mobile number. The victim is quite well-connected and his sister is the Deputy Commissioner of the GST Department. The cyber cell and the Madhuban Bapudham Police have nabbed four people so far in connection with the fraud.

SP City Nipun Aggarwal said that the names of the accused are Bhanu Pratap Sharma, Vipin Rathore, Deepak and Trilok Sharma. The police have confiscated mobile phones, more than 20 ATM cards, Rs 5 lakh in cash and a Maruti Ertiga car from the accused.

According to Abhay Kumar Mishra, CO of the cybercrime cell, the victim Gaurav Gupta is a resident of a colony in the Madhuban Bapudham area of Ghaziabad. His phone number linked to his bank account and Aadhaar number was not in use for the last couple of months.

Although Gaurav had applied to update his number registered with the Bank of Baroda, the process was not completed yet. A few months later, the same number was allotted to Vipin Rathore, who is a resident of Delhi. When he received messages related to the bank, he got together with his friend Bhanu and hatched the conspiracy to commit the fraud.

The duo, with the help of a third person named Deepak, downloaded Gaurav’s Aadhaar card from the bank link and replaced the photo with that of Vipin’s. After that, on the basis of forged documents, Bank of Baroda issued a new debit card linked to Gaurav Gupta’s account.

After this, Trilok Sharma withdrew Rs 16 lakh from Gaurav Gupta’s account through net banking. The resulting amount was divided equally among the four accused.

However, their cover was blown when the victim, Gaurav Gupta, filed a case on July 31 at the Madhuban Bapudham police station. The four were arrested following the FIR.

The mastermind of the plan, Bhanu, was found to have been involved in many such crimes, including cheating people by giving out fraudulent advertisements to lure people into fake ‘money making’ schemes.

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