Jammu:
With the arrest of seven persons, the Crime Branch of Jammu and Kashmir police today claimed to have busted an inter-state gang of online fraudsters who allegedly used to dupe people by pretending to be representatives of banks and insurance companies.
"We received a complaint from one Vijay Kumar Gupta of Kathua who informed that he was duped of Rs 37 lakh by few people who pretended to be from an insurance company where he had made some investment earlier," SSP Crime Mubassir Latifi told reporters in Jammu.
He said that the accused made several telephone calls to the victim and informed him that his policy had lapsed and he needed to deposit some money to revive it.
"He paid the money and by the time he realised that he was duped of his hard earned money, Gupta had already deposited more than Rs 37 lakh in different accounts of the accused who introduced themselves to be employees of the insurance company," he said.
SSP Latifi said that a team of Crime branch investigated the case and was sent to Delhi where the case was cracked and the accused arrested.
The accused have been identified as Chander Shaker Kandpal, Shiv Kumar, Anil Kumar, Arun Dass, Rajeev Tanwar, Sachin Bharadwaj and Pushkar Chaudhary.
"The crime branch has also been successful in recovering an amount of Rs 15 Lakh and would recover more amount in the coming days," he said.
The SSP said that crime branch expects more such cases to unearth after the questioning of the accused.
"We appeal to the people not to fall prey to such phone calls and don't divulge their credit or debit card and bank account details on telephone," he added.