Purnia. Police has exposed a big and high-profile cyber crime racket in Purnia district of Bihar. The police has arrested the accused who earned about 2 lakh US dollars (about Rs 1.60 crore) in just one year through cyber fraud. This entire transaction was being done through cryptocurrency.
Purnia’s Additional Superintendent of Police, Alok Kumar told a press conference that Bihar Police Headquarters had received information through CERT-In that cyber crime was being conducted on a large scale in Srinagar village of Mofussil police station area. After this, a joint team of Bihar STF, EOU and Purnia Cyber Police Station raided and detained Rakesh Mandal, his brother Harishchandra Mandal and father Deepak Mandal.
Data was available on entering mobile number
During the search, Rs 2 lakh 80 thousand in cash, passbooks of several banks, ATM cards, 9 mobile phones, an Apple tab, MacBook and laptop were recovered from the house of the accused. Investigation revealed that Rakesh Mandal, along with his associates Rohan (East Champaran) and Raunak (Motihari), was running a website in which complete personal data of any person was available just by entering the mobile number.
Data was sold on Instagram and Telegram
According to the police, this data was sold on social media platforms like Instagram and Telegram, where payment was taken in cryptocurrency. The investigation has confirmed that a total of US$ 1,94,670 was deposited in various crypto wallets of the accused. ASP Alok Kumar told that Rakesh Mandal was promoting online banned gaming apps like Tricolor, Casino Game, DIU WIN and The Act Pornhub since the year 2024. To promote these apps, he used to make reels and post them on Telegram and Instagram. Not only this, Rakesh was also developing a separate crypto exchange app for cyber fraud by the name KULK FI.
Used to cheat by creating fake websites
Police said that Rakesh used the bank account and ATM card of his associate Rohan for illegal transactions. In this case, an FIR has been registered on the charges of leaking personal data of Indian citizens through social media, buying and selling of secure data, violation of right to privacy, promotion of banned apps and earning illegal money by creating fake websites.
Case registered under various sections
A case has been registered against the accused under various sections of IT Act, BNS, Indian Telecom Act and Banning of Unregulated Deposit Scheme Act 2019. Police have arrested Rakesh Mandal and sent him to jail, while the search for Rohan and Raunak is going on. SP said that at present the investigation is going on and it is being found out which countries were connected to this cyber racket and at which places people’s personal data was sold.
