17, including four Taiwanese nationals arrested for running 'digital arrest' cyber fraud gang

Ahmedabad: The Cyber Crime Branch of Ahmedabad police on Monday arrested 17 people including four Taiwanese nationals from different cities in a crackdown on cyber crime network which used to con victims by placing them under "digital arrest."

"Digital arrest" is a modus operandi of the cyber criminals claiming to be enforcement officers probing money laundering or anti-national activities. They would force the victims to be accessible via video or audio call round the clock while claiming to be investigating the crime.

In this case, the complainant and his wife were "digitally arrested" for ten days through video calls. The conmen claimed themselves as officials from TRAI, CBI and officers from Mumbai Cyber Crime and said that an FIR was registered against the duo in Byculla Police Station. The couple was told that an arrest warrant had also been issued against him. 

The victim was made to deposit Rs 79.34 lakh in the conman's account, which they claimed, was refundable after completing an inquiry by the RBI. The money, police investigation found, was deposited in different bank accounts located in Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Limbdi in Gujarat and different parts of Rajasthan, Delhi and Odisha.

After receiving the complaint and inputs, the cyber crime branch team raided places in Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Odisha and Maharashtra and arrested 17 persons, including four Taiwanese nationals. 

The Taiwan natives have been identified as Mu Chi Sung, 42, Chang Hu Yun, 33, Wang Chun Wei, 26, and Shen Wei, 35. They were arrested from Delhi and Bengaluru. Police said that the Taiwanese had allegedly "rented" bank accounts from several agents and facilitated technical expertise. The police found a new modus operandi of racket. They were using rooted mobiles, which connected to routers passing OTP links of various bank accounts to Taiwanese Gmail IDs.

Later, technical analysis revealed that more than 120 mobiles were connected to it and such setups were operational in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.

The team raided various locations in these cities and arrested one of the prime accused identified as Saif Haider. He is alleged to have been in direct contact with one of the Taiwanese citizens.

Police have recovered Rs 12.75 lakh in cash, 761 SIM cards, 120 mobile phones, 96 cheque books, 92 debit and credit cards and 42 bank passbooks related to accounts taken on rent to make transactions.

The Taiwanese nationals are alleged to have integrated online wallets in their system. They would receive money from victims and transfer them to different bank accounts as well as crypto accounts in Dubai using this app.