Nurpur police solve two cyber fraud cases; Rs 3 lakh recovered

Nurpur district police have arrested a cybercriminal from Surat in Gujarat and in the second case recovered duped money to the tune of Rs 3 lakh from Bihar based fraudster after freezing his bank account.

The first case was registered on the complaint of Harbans Singh, a resident of Khukhniara village, against unidentified cyber fraudsters under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the Fatehpur police station on March 22, 2023.

As per the police, the complainant had received a WhatsApp call from an unknown phone number. The caller introduced himself as Amit Kumar, brother-in-law of his daughter married in Jalandhar. The caller managed to persuade Harbans Singh to transfer Rs 3 lakh to a bank account number on the pretext that the UK immigration authorities had caught him and told him to pay a fine of Rs 5 lakh.

The cyber cell of the Nurpur police conducted a thorough investigation and then dispatched a special team to Bihar after tracing the location of the accused there. SP, Nurpur, Kulbhushan Verma said that on sensing that a massive hunt was on to arrest him in coordination with the local police, the accused fled his house. The cyber cell had frozen his bank account in which the duped money had been transferred.

He said that the cyber cell team succeeded in recovering the money and transferred it back to the bank account of the complainant.

The second cybercrime case was lodged on the complaint of Shimla Devi, wife of Girdhari Lal of Matholi village, in the Nurpur police station on January 25, 2024. An unidentified fraudster had called her and introduced himself to her nephew Janu. The accused asked her for Rs 3.20 lakh on the pretext that he was stuck in Mexico and she transferred the money to him through the UPI.

The SP said that the cyber team traced the accused to Bihar but he fled to Surat in Gujarat. However, he was nabbed in Surat. The police on Tuesday produced him in court, which remanded him in judicial custody. He cautioned people to be vigilant of such cybercrimes.