Agartala: The Tripura police busted a racket of fraudsters involved in duping people masquerading as enumerators of a government-funded survey for collection of data related to Covid-19 vaccine doses.
As many as three persons had already been arrested in this connection while a manhunt is on to track other accomplices, Superintendent of Police North Tripura District Bhanupada Chakraborty said.
The shocking incident came to light after two individuals lodged similar police complaints at Kadamtala area of North Tripura District two days back. In both the cases, a survey team comprising two individuals–later found to be father and daughter–met the victims to ascertain whether they had received all the three doses of the Covid-19 vaccines or not.
Pretending to be surveyors, the duo convinced both the victims to access their mobile phone for a little while. And, after a certain period of time a significant amount of money had been withdrawn from their bank accounts opened at a local private bank, the police said.
Meanwhile, one of the victims clicked a photo of the scooter that was used for commuting to their place, which later turned out to be a big breakthrough for the police to arrest the accused persons.
They have been identified as Laxmi Gaur, Mitu Gaur and Goutam Biswas. All of them are permanent residents of the Baruakandi village of Kadamtala.
Sandip Deb, who lost Rs 3,70,000 to the fraudster group, said, “They met me and asked about the vaccination process. After filling all the details in a notebook they wanted to check my mobile phone. In good faith, I gave her access to my mobile phone. I noticed that there was an unread message in the message box and when she returned my mobile phone the unread sign that popped up earlier disappeared. I thought it was related to the OTP of the vaccination data. Suddenly, in the afternoon I found that Rs 3,70,000 had been withdrawn from my bank account.”
Similar was the experience of Satyaranjan Nath, who runs an eatery close to the Kadamtala hospital. He said, “I was a little hesitant to share my mobile phone but later I thought it could be something crucial for the government. As I was doubtful, I sent my employee to click a photo of the scooter as it could help me find them out if anything goes wrong.”
A total of Rs 82,000 was withdrawn from Nath’s account without his consent. Intriguingly, both the accounts belong to the same branch of the Bandhan Bank. And, the modus operandi indicates that the hackers had prior knowledge that enough money was deposited in both the accounts.
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“Later, the photo clicked by Nath helped the police to track them. Sources in the department said those mobile phones were hacked to get all the data required for accessing the bank accounts and they did it. Investigation is underway to trace the mastermind of this racket,” sources said.
Police investigation also found that the father daughter duo was hoodwinked into this fraudster racket by Goutam Biswas.
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