2 held for making dummy octroi collection sites

After a search operation spanning over four months and across three states, officials of the cyber cell on Tuesday netted two men who had allegedly made three dummy websites for collecting Octroi. The complaint was lodged by BMC last September.

The accused are Uday Surve (40), who works as an Octroi agent and Rahul Shirke (30), who holds a diploma in computer software/hardware and web designing. Shirke used to work as a computer operator for a private firm, which had made the original website for BMC, which helped him to commit the crime.

To increase the collection of Octroi, the BMC in September 2011 made a website — www.mcgmoctroi.com. Due to online payments, the agents were rendered useless. In 2014, a couple of dummy websites came up one after the other with the names — mcgmoctpay.in and mcgmoct.com.

The cyber cell nabbed the accused who made the first website, but a second FIR was registered in September and a probe revealed that two more dummy websites named mcgmoctpay.net and mcgmoctpay.com were made. After the first FIR, the accused shut all the three websites and remained untraceable.

Under the guidance of additional commissioner, crime, K.M.M. Prasanna, a team led by senior inspector Sudhir Mahadik, comprising PSI Vijay Rane and constables Ingole and Turadvad traced the persons who run a web hosting service and sold web space to the accused. One was traced to Chennai and other to Ahmedabad. The accused used a laptop and a fraudulently obtained SIM card to commit the crime. The team even went to Odisha and traced a person whose e-mail id was randomly filled by the accused as an alternative e-mail, while creating a fake email ID.

Based on technical evidence, the duo was nabbed from Kalwa and incriminating materials have been seized from them. They were booked under the IPC and IT Act. The websites were active for a few weeks, but the accused could not make money, as clients didn’t come forward.