Four held for online shopping fraud in Delhi

Delhi Police said on Wednesday they have arrested four persons allegedly involved in online shopping fraud to the tune of ₹8 lakh using an e-commerce platform.

Police said the matter came to light after a Shahdara trader registered a complaint with them.

The trader had placed an order for a photocopy machine on INDIAMART portal and a person, who introduced himself as Anshul Aggarwal, a sales manager of a firm named Balaji Enterprises, reached out to him assuring he can deliver the machine, police said.

Aggarwal asked the trader to transfer an amount of ₹3.21 lakh to his bank account to get the machine but after the payment he stopped taking phone calls from the trader, they said.

The accused neither delivered the purchased item nor returned the money, a senior police officer said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Rohit Meena said they analysed the call detail records of the suspect and used other technical surveillance methods to identify him.

"On the basis of technical surveillance, a person identified as Puneet Chandok (41) was arrested on April 11 from Rohini. Two swipe machines, 15 debit cards, five mobile phones and nine SIM cards were recovered from him," he said.

Later, his accomplices Chander Shekhar (30), Vipin Kumar (30) and Vishnu Sharma (24) were arrested.

With their arrest, online shopping fraud cases involving ₹8 lakh have been unearthed, police said.

During interrogation, Chandok revealed his gang members would advertise products on the INDIAMART website and its mobile application. When a customer would contact on the given number, the gang members would trap them and ask them to transfer money to purchase the item to their bank accounts, DCP Meena said.

The accused would withdraw the amount from the bank accounts through ATMs, he said.

Chandok managed the bank accounts and arranged the SIM cards, he added.