A special PMLA court in Ranchi on Saturday convicted five Jamtara residents in an organised cyber fraud case. The men have been identified as Pradeep Kumar Mandal, Pintu Mandal, Ganesh Mandal, Ankush Kumar Mandal, and Santosh Mandal.
The initial FIR in the matter was filed in 2015 at Naranpur police station of Jharkhand’s Jamtara district under sections 414 (assisting in concealment of stolen property), 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), and 471(using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code as well as sections 66(b), 66(c), and 66(d) of the Information Technology Act.
The Netflix series Jamtara is said to have been based on real-life incidents of phishing phone calls and bank account scamming launched by some criminals from this district, giving it the moniker of “cybercrime capital” for many years.
Modus operandi
Accused Ganesh Mandal in his statements told the Enforcement Directorate that Pradeep Mandal and Pintu Mandal used to gather bank customers’ phone numbers from the internet. He afterwards called the people while pretending to be their bank managers to illegally obtain their ATM/bank account details for subsequent transferring of funds to themselves. The gang used other means also to collect information regarding customers’ ATM details.
Another accused, Ankush Mandal, also disclosed that they would call bank clients while posing as bank managers and get their ATM details by claiming that their cards were likely to be blocked. Thereafter, OTPs were generated and upon receiving the code from the victims, amounts were transferred from their accounts to Paytm, Vodafone, and other digital wallets and later transferred to Mandal’s bank account.
Recovery
During the investigation, it was found that the main accused, Pradeep Mandal, had amassed properties worth Rs 99 lakh and was also involved in money laundering. The immovable properties included at least three buildings in Jamtara district along with a Mahindra Scorpio vehicle and 2 motorcycles.
The ED in its investigation found that none of these five people had any legal source of income through which they could have acquired the property.
The special PMLA court of Justice Prabhat Kumar Sharma found all the five accused guilty of the crimes, while the quantum of the sentence will be announced on Tuesday.
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