Kolkata Police arrested four online fraudsters belonging to the Jamtara gang on Saturday from Jharkhand for duping an elderly citizen to the tunes of Rs 88 lakhs in June last year. As many as seven persons have already been apprehended in connection with the case. The accused had opened as many as 150 bank accounts with forged documents across the country to siphon off the money.

Police said that a complaint was lodged at Hare Street police station by Pradip Kumar Chaudhury, a resident of an apartment near EM Bypass, in June last year. “The complainant had shared his bank details to the miscreants who called him over the phone and lost around 88 lakh rupees. Once the case was reported to us, we could block around 30 lakh rupees. During investigations, it was found that the money was deposited in as many as 150 fraudulently opened online bank accounts across India.

In the same case, seven persons were arrested in July and August last year,” said Joint CP (crime) Murlidhar Sharma. The arrested persons have been identified as Chhoto Dey (18), Pradip Dan (18), Govinda Dutta (25) and Sanjit Rakshit (20). The four were nabbed from Jamtara and Dhanbad in Jharkhand during a raid by the officers from the Detective Department (DD) on Saturday.

The accused have been booked under IPC Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security or will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using forged document as a genuine one). In another incident of online forgery, a 22-year-old Deoghar-based man was arrested on 31 January.

The accused, Vinod Kumar Pandit, had sent a fake message via an e-wallet to one Samir Kumar Sinha, asking him to update his KYC details to avoid his account getting blocked and obtained his bank details by uploading a remote access app in the complainant’s mobilephone by a trick. The complainant had lost more than 6.50 lakh rupees. The accused was brought on transit remand and he has been sent to police custody till 10 February.

A further probe has been launched into the case. Three members of the Jamtara gang were arrested by the Cyber Crime police station last November after several complaints of online cheating were registered. Jamtara district in Jharkhand has emerged as a hub of cybercrime in recent years and majority of the online financial fraudsters are based out of there.