Tura, May 23: A major success has been achieved by West Garo Hills police in their fight against cyber criminals with the arrest of 8 men involved in duping innocent citizens of Garo Hills by misleading them into depositing large amounts of money into fake digital accounts.
The arrests took place after a painstaking two month investigation that saw crime investigation units from West Garo Hills police head to Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Assam to nab the criminals behind the cyber heist.
One of the crucial points of the investigation was on the disappearance of Rs 5,50,000/- from a staff member of Tura DC office in April.
The fraudsters impersonating as the West Garo Hills DC directed the staffer to deposit the money into an online account after which the money disappeared.
The gang had shrewdly put up a facade with a complete portfolio of the DC into a WhatsApp number with his picture and other details and cleverly impersonated him asking officials to deposit large sums of money into a particular account number or a gift hamper.
Unaware of the fake account and fearful of questioning the authority of his boss, the DC office staff member duly deposited as ‘directed’ only to learn later that he had been duped.
Based on his FIR at Tura police station, the SP of West Garo Hills, Vivekanand Singh Rathore set up a Special Investigation Team and the probe soon led the team to Rajasthan where 4 members of the gang were caught on the 10th of May.
Further investigation led Garo Hills police to Uttar Pradesh where 2 other members of the cyber criminal gang who had been hiding were arrested on the 16th of this month.
It was further unravelled that another two members of the gang were operating from next door in Assam and Garo Hills police with support from Assam Police raided their hideout and nabbed both criminals on the 19th of this month. All 8 members have been brought into state police custody and more arrests are expected as the investigation reveals more people being involved from different states of the country.
