Gang of eight members arrests for digital marketing fraud

The Rachakonda police on Monday arrested a gang of eight persons on charges of digital marketing fraud and seized eight laptops, 89 mobile phones, 4,950 SIM cards and Rs.50,000 from them.

Police identified the suspects as M Sandeep (26), a resident of NGO’s colony in Vanasthalipuram, B Murali Krishna (28) of Tarmathipet in Hayathnagar, K Ravikanth (32) of Buradavan Colony in Ibrahimpatnam, B Manoj Kumar (24) from Hasthinapuram, A Surender Reddy (26) of Almasguda Saroornagar, J Srinivas (33) from Mahankali in Ibrahimpatnam, and K Srisailam (28) of Anaspura in Abdullapurmet.

The modus operandi of the gang was to establish a fake digital marketing network and to cheat companies in the name of marketing calls. For this, a huge number of SIM cards were gathered from agents of cellular service providers and companies were called by impersonating as customers.The cards were activated using fake identification documents.



The numbers were later shared with manufacturing companies and service providers. They also attended marketing calls from the manufacturers and service providers posing as customers.

“When the call is attended, the money fixed by the manufacturer or service provider is automatically credited to the affiliated network or digital marketing agents, which in this case were the suspects,” police said, adding that Sandeep had one such affiliated network agency.

Police registered cases under Section 419 (Punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), and 474 (Having possession of document described in Section 466 or 467, knowing it to be forged and intending to use it as genuine) of IPC. They were produced before court and remanded in judicial custody.