New Delhi: An IIT post-graduate has been arrested for allegedly running a fake website with pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and duping people in the name of ‘Free Laptop Government Scheme on the Occasion of Re-election of New Government’.
Rakesh Jangid, 23, of the 2019 batch, was arrested from his hometown Pundlota in Rajasthan's Nagaur district, the police said.
Over 15 lakh people were exposed to the con job within two days. The fake website offering the bogus scheme was promoted using instant messaging apps and became viral on WhatsApp, the police said.
"A team of Delhi Police Cyber Cell on Saturday reached Rajasthan's Nagaur and arrested the accused from his residence. He is an IIT post-graduate of the 2019 batch," Additional PRO, Delhi Police, Anil Mittal said.
"Rakesh admitted that he had created the website to earn advertising revenue from increased website traffic. He was aiming to capture personal data of millions of gullible citizens which could be later traded to various cyber-criminals to cheat victims and extort money from them on various pretexts," he added.
The accused used fake promotional multimedia message using ''Make in India'' logo and picture of the prime minister on the website to lure people to register themselves for getting free laptops.
The Cyber Crime Unit of Delhi Police - CyPAD received information that someone had created and hosted a website by the domain name www.modi-laptop.wishguruji.com which was promising distribution of millions of free laptops on the occasion PM Modi's re-election, a senior police officer said.
The accused had cleverly used Google AdSense, a program that allows bloggers and website owners to make money by displaying Google ads, he said.
Jangid was offered a job in a private company in Hyderabad. However, he took to crime to make easy money, the officer said.
Investigation of the case is in progress, the police said, adding efforts are being made to identify the involvement of others in the scam.
(Inputs from agencies)
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