Chandigarh: Charges framed against accused in lottery scam

Chandigarh, February 10

A PMLA court has framed charges against an accused, Amit Khan, in an alleged lottery scam unearthed by the Chandigarh Police in 2011.

The charges have been framed for the offence committed under Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), punishable under Section 4 of the Act.

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) had filed a complaint against the accused in 2014. The ED alleged that the accused, Amit Khan, a resident of Araria, Bihar, in connivance with his accomplices, was involved in a lottery scam. It said he used to cheat innocent people with the help of his accomplices from Pakistan. As per the complaint filed by the ED before the PMLA court, members of the gang sitting in Pakistan used to make random phone calls to cellphone subscribers in India. People were told that they had won an international lottery worth millions of dollars. To access the money, they had to deposit an initial amount as a tax. If people agreed to it, they were given a bank account number and told to deposit money in it. Khan was active in Chandigarh for opening bank accounts. He immediately used to withdraw the deposited money through ATMs.

Some percentage of the withdrawal amount was kept by Khan as his commission and the remaining was used to purchase recharge coupons/scratch cards of Dish TV and ITZ cash. He then used to send the secret code revealed after scratching cards of Dish TV and ITZ cash to his Pakistani associates through telephone. ATM cards of different banks were recovered from his possession.

Following a tip-off, Khan was arrested from a SBI ATM in Sector 17 in 2011. Three mobile phones were recovered from him and call records showed that he was in constant touch with his accomplices on two numbers in Pakistan. Two voter cards, one showing him as Amit Khan, a resident of Kajheri, Chandigarh, and the other showing him as Zakir, a resident of Bihar, were also recovered from him.