Two nabbed from Bihar after Delhi-based retired govt official falls prey to online fraud

New Delhi: Two men were arrested from Bihar for allegedly duping a retired government official in east Delhi of Rs 41,000 by sending a fake payment link to him, police said on Thursday.

The accused, Sachin Jha (27) and Mohammad Sakib (23), hail from Bihar's Patna and Aurangabad districts, respectively, they said.

According to additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, Achin Garg, a complaint was received in December by cyber cell of east district where the complainant, a retired senior government officer, told police that while he was trying to make a bill payment on his credit card using net banking, he clicked on a suspicious payment link that he received on his email-ID, resulting in an automatic deduction of Rs 41,000 from his pension account.

"The money trail found that the entire cheated amount had been transferred to one HDFC bank account of Darbangha, Bihar registered in the name of Tribhuvan Sinha of Patna and the withdrawal of the amount was done from an ATM in Kolkata," a police official said.

A team was sent to Bihar and Sinha was interrogated.

Another officer said Sinha disclosed that he hadn't opened the alleged HDFC account but he knew Sachin Jha who had taken his Aadhaar card, PAN card, seven months back on the pretext of helping him to secure a loan from a bank and to help him in his business.

Subsequently, Jha was apprehended and many mobile phones, chequebooks, passbooks, SIM cards, debit cards, laptops and stamps were recovered from his possession, officer said.

He told police that he had opened a bank account in Sinha's name and sold the account to one person identified as Shakib, who further sold that account to Riyaz in Koltaka, who had created the fake link due to which the money was debited from victim's account, officer further said.

Police said teams were formed to nab Riyaz.