Operation Hydra: TN police arrest 7 cyber criminals across India
On May 28, Mohammed Dawood (21) and Mohammed Vaseem (34) were apprehended from Jaspur in Uttarakhand by cyber crime cops from Tamil Nadu.
CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Police’s Cyber Crime wing said that as part of a pan-India operation titled, ‘Operation Hydra’, police have arrested seven cyber criminals from across the country.
According to officials, multiple teams were sent to Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Assam, and New Delhi to apprehend the suspects involved in organised cyber fraud operations, such as matrimonial fraud, phishing scams, and scholarship scam.
On May 28, Mohammed Dawood (21) and Mohammed Vaseem (34) were apprehended from Jaspur in Uttarakhand by cyber crime cops from Tamil Nadu. Both had played a direct role in facilitating mule bank accounts used in the laundering of money received via matrimonial fraud.
In another case registered at the state cyber crime headquarters involving phishing and impersonation, a victim had lost Rs 4.05 lakh to scamsters who called him impersonating an ICICI bank customer care executive. “The fraudster sent a fake APK file via WhatsApp under the guise of updating KYC details. After installation, the victim unknowingly granted access to sensitive personal and banking data, including PAN and debit card details,” an official release said.
A special team tracked and arrested Pankaj Kumar (40) from Jharkhand on May 30, Hiteswar Biswas (30) from Hojai, Assam, on May 31 and Nihar Ranjan Nath (51) from Nagaon, Assam, on June 1. They were found to be part of a wider syndicate facilitating fraudulent digital lending transactions and mule accounts, police said.
In a scholarship scam complaint, registered at Thanjavur Cyber Crime Police Station, students were targeted under the false promise of receiving government financial aid for education. Fraudsters had collected personal details and small payments as ‘processing fees’, and then vanished.
Investigations into the case led to the arrest of main accused Preeti Nicholas (30) and Meshach (19), both from northeast Delhi, on June 1. “Both were found to be involved in collecting student data and facilitating the creation of forged digital documents to support the fraudulent schemes. We’ve arrested nine suspects so far in connection with scholarship scams in the past two months,” police stated.
If you’re a victim of a digital scam, or know someone who is, call 1930 for the toll-free assistance provided by Cyber Crime wing or register your complaint at www.cybercrime.gov.in
