5 held for duping people through online sex platform

Mumbai: The Cyber Crime Cell of Mumbai Police has arrested five persons for allegedly duping over 2,000 people to the tune of lakhs of rupees through an online sex platform, official said on Wednesday.

The accused used to operate a call centre from Masjid Bunder in South Mumbai.

The issue came to light a few days back, when the city police received complaints of cheating through website.

Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, police said the customers had the facility to log in on three different websites.

"After registering on one of these websites and paying Rs 999, one could connect with a person of the opposite sex, like a friendship club. The payments were being made through PayTm in the account number mentioned on the website," police said.

After the registration, the customer used to contact a specific number, displayed on the website, but could not get response despite repeated calls.

"The registration fees paid by the customer used to get transferred into the bank account of a jeweller from the same area. The customers later used to realise that they have been duped," police said.

The Cyber Police, which was making inquiry into the complaints, came to know that the PayTm account number was being changed frequently, although the receiver remained the same.

"The operator of the sex website used to send his man to the jeweller, where he used to give gold coins of the amounts in exchange of money which he has received in the form of membership fees," police said.

On Tuesday, when an aide of the website operator went to collect the gold coins from jeweller, a police team nabbed him on the spot by laying a trap.

After getting information from him, police raided three offices, including a call centre at Masjid Bunder area, from where all the operations were going on.

Cyber Police has arrested Mohd Shakib Abdul Malik Caotwala (24), Girish Harbansh Jaiswal (33), Kamal Suresh Vishwakarma (31), Arjun Ramprakash Kanoujia (28) and Sharif Afzal Ahmad Khan (24) from the spot. These accused include three website operators and a jeweller.

"Police have seized 16 hard disks, 300 mobile SIM cards, 3 laptops and 37 mobile phones. After arresting the accused, police produced them before the court, which remanded them in police custody till April 10," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crime Cell) Akhilesh Kumar Singh said, adding that the accused have cheated more than 2,000 people.

The accused had procured multiple SIM cards, which they used for making calls to gullible customers, he said.

Investigation into the case is on, the DCP added.