Representative image of cyber criminal
Credit: iStock Photo
Bengaluru: The Central Crime Branch (CCB) arrested a 37-year-old engineer for cheating victims of cybercrime by offering them fake legal assistance online, officials said.
The arrested, Chota Ahammed Mubaraq alias Tufail, a native of Tamil Nadu, was residing in Kothanur, Bengaluru. He is a BE graduate in Electronics and Communication.
The probe began in February after the Ramamurthy Nagar police received a complaint from a man who lost Rs 12.5 lakh while seeking legal help online, after being conned of Rs 1.5 crore by cybercriminals.
The fake firm, Quickmoto Legal Service, was allegedly run by Tufail.
The case was later handed over to the CCB’s cybercrime division.
Investigations revealed that Quickmoto had no physical presence, only a fake address. However, the police traced it to a call centre, India Legal Service, in Kasturi Nagar.
Tufail reportedly hired 12 telecallers to contact cybercrime victims. They used Zoiper-5, a free Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) app, to mask their location during calls.
“Tufail’s brother in Dubai floated several firms to carry out cybercrimes. Tufail posed as a legal aid provider and collected money from the victims as service and legal fees,” a police officer said.
During a raid at the call centre, the police seized 10 hard disks, seven fake seals, rental agreements, cheque books, a mobile phone, a CPU, 11 Vodafone SIM cards, and an SIP trunk server used for VoIP calls.
The police said the firm is linked to illegal transactions worth crores of rupees, with 29 cases registered across India. "The probe is being expanded to trace the larger syndicate,” the officer added.