New Delhi, Dec 22: Two men were arrested for allegedly running a fake government website through which they established an online network across the country for duping people on the pretext of helping them to apply for voter identity cards, police said on Wednesday. Ankit Kumar Pal (26) and Manmohan Singh (22), who were arrested from Uttar Pradesh, were the masterminds behind the fraud, they added.
More than 10,000 people had fallen prey to the fake website — voteridcard.ebharatseva.in — police said. The accused duo had established an online network for luring people to apply for voter identity cards. They used to target gullible victims from all over the country and after the initial enrolment, used to charge Rs 650 from them.
They had also promoted the fake website by paying money for Google advertisements so that it would appear as a “top search” option, police said. A case was registered at the Rajinder Nagar police station in November on the basis of a complaint from one of the victims, who alleged that he had to get some changes effected in his voter ID card for which he searched online and came across the fake website, a senior police officer said.
When he visited the website, he was directed to a payment gateway for a payment of Rs 650 as mandatory charges. After making the payment, he received e-mails from [email protected] and [email protected], stating that the payment was successful, his application would be processed and an executive would contact him shortly, the officer added. However, as there was no further response from the website, the victim got suspicious and subsequently, found out that the official website of the Election Commission of India (ECI) is “voterportal.eci.gov.in”.
“During the course of the enquiry, the money trail as well as the website registration details were obtained and it was established that these activities were being carried out by some fraudster on a very large scale. The case was handed over to the cyber police station of the district,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Shweta Chauhan said. The probe revealed that the payment was processed through a payment gateway, which was further credited to a bank account registered in the name of a cyber cafe.
The proprietor of the cyber cafe was identified as Manmohan Singh, a resident of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, the officer said, adding that he was arrested. Based on the information provided by Singh, Pal, a resident of Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, was also nabbed, she said.
Pal told the police that one of their associates, whom he had met in Noida while looking for a job, came up with the idea of cheating people on the pretext of helping them apply for voter identity cards, Chauhan said. The associate had created the fake website and the payment gateway that was registered in Singh’s name, she added.
There were transactions involving huge amounts of money from the bank accounts of the accused and efforts are on to trace others involved in the case, the police said.
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