Bhubaneswar police find links of courier scam gang with Chinese cyber criminals

BHUBANESWAR: Following the recent arrest of five men in connection with a fake courier scam, city police have uncovered evidence suggesting the involvement of some Chinese cyber criminals in duping people in 24 states, including Odisha.
Police arrested five members of the gang — Sheikh Tajuddin, Muchumari Chitti Babu (both of Andhra Pradesh), Denzo Laleng Zauva Kaipeng and Jiten Kaipeng (both of Tripura), and James Elvis Tara of Assam — on June 18.The accused impersonated Mumbai police officers and extorted Rs 36 lakh from a Bhubaneswar airport officer by falsely claiming they discovered drugs in a parcel he sent to Taiwan.
“We have come across digital evidence, involving chats and video calls between the accused and some China-based cyber scammers. The accused were hired by the Chinese nationals. We will get lookout circulars issued against the Chinese citizens,” commissioner of police Sanjeeb Panda told TOI.
He said law enforcement agencies of 23 states, including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir, are on the pursuit of the cyber criminal gang, whose members allegedly defrauded several people of nearly Rs 25 crore across the country.
“We took the accused on 3-day remand for interrogation. The remand ended on Monday. We found that at least 313 complaints were registered against the gang in different states. While police personnel from a few states have already reached Bhubaneswar to question the accused, we facilitated a virtual interrogation facility for cops of other states via video conference on Tuesday,” Panda said.
The scammers, masquerading as courier company executives, called up victims to inform them that parcels in their names were intercepted with drugs or other contraband. The fraudsters immediately connected the victims via video calls to fake law enforcement officials who threatened them to pay to avoid arrest or legal action. Assuming the callers are genuine cops, many people transferred money to the accounts shared by the scammers.