Delhi: 3 apprehended for luring more than 50 people over fake social media advertisements

Delhi Police on Wednesday apprehended three alleged fraudsters for cheating people by offering electronic items or hardware at discounted rates through advertisements on social media.

The Cyber staff of North-West Delhi Police solved a cheating case and registered a case under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against three people who allegedly are involved in luring people by offering discounts on electronic goods and later inducing the customers to pay a partial amount in advance.

The three involved are Love Pahwa (24) who is a resident of Geeta Colony in Delhi, Mukesh Luthra (26) resident of Pandav Road, Vishwas Nagar, Delhi and Kiran Nagpal who is the wife of Love Pahwa (38) and lives at Lakshmi Nagar.

According to the police, they have cheated more than 50 innocent people in the last 6 months across the country. Several complaints against them have also been registered in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The case was highlighted to Delhi Police when a resident of Delhi's Kingsway Camp, was trapped in one of their frauds and lost money. The man saw an advertisement on Facebook for a laptop that was at a discounted price of Rs 45,000, he called on the phone number mentioned the advertisement. The man and alleged fraudsters made a deal and the man was promised to receive the laptop.

For the same he transferred Rs 15,000 as the first instalment upon which he was further convinced to transfer at least 50 per cent of the total amount. Thereafter, he further transferred Rs. 5,000 through UPI. Again, he was contacted and further lured to transfer Rs 2,200 as delivery/courier charges. In total, he transferred Rs 22,200 to the alleged persons.

He later realized that he was a victim of fraud that happened to him when neither the laptop was delivered, nor the alleged person picked up his calls.

Accordingly, a case was registered at Cyber Police Station and a further investigation was taken up. Considering the gravity of the offence and nature of the incident, a team was constituted and was briefed properly and tasked to nab the culprits at the earliest.

The team immediately obtained the beneficiary account details and mounted technical surveillance. The details were thoroughly scrutinized and sources were deployed to gather local intelligence in order to nab the accused person.

Based on information collected and analysis of details, a raid was conducted by the team at an address in Lakshmi Nagar, Delhi from where three accused persons were apprehended and digital evidence related to the instant case were collected, including 3 mobile phones and 3 SIM cards which found connected in the present case.

During their sustained interrogation, they confessed their involvement in the instant case and Love Pahwa emerged to be the mastermind of this fraud. He disclosed that he alongwith his wife and one friend/ associate used to commit online fraud to earn easy money, in order to bear the expenses for leading a lavish life.

He further disclosed that he and his associate used to check details of possible targets from posts/advertisements on his Facebook Page regarding sale of electronics/ sanitary/ hardware items. They used to get contact numbers of interested customers from the comments posted on these posts on Facebook.

They further used to call the interested customers and lure them that they would provide desired items at discounted rates and further induced them to transfer half amount in their bank accounts as advance and amount in name of delivery charges. They also used to post their fake advertisements for selling electronics items at discounted rates on Facebook.

They further disclosed that they used to cheat innocents by inducing them to purchase electronic items or Hardware through advertisements on Facebook groups or pages.

They used to receive the cheated amount in the bank account of co-accused Kiran w/o Love Pahwa (main mastermind) through UPI transactions or online transfers. They shared the earned cheated amount in the ratio of 70 per cent by Love Pahwa and 30 per cent by Mukesh Pankaj. Accused Love Pahwa used to lure customers to transfer money and accused Mukesh used to withdraw the amount through ATM so as to share the same as per their percentage.

(ANI)