37 arrested as police raid Mathura’s ‘Mini Jamtara’ in a cybercrime crackdown

The raids continued for nearly 12 hours, during which police searched over 300 houses. A large cache of incriminating material was seized, including dozens of mobile phones, SIM cards, Aadhaar cards, digital devices, and fake documents. Seven motorcycles were also recovered.

While there are reports that the action was taken after a complaint of being duped of crores of money by an “influential politician”, the SSP denied these claims. “The action was taken after we found data which suggested that there were rackets operating from this area. The action was taken based on that,” he told The Indian Express.

According to police, most of those arrested are young men, though some are over 50 years old as well. Investigators say the arrested individuals used basic smartphones to run sophisticated fraud operations, phishing, OTP extraction, loan app scams, “sextortion” and digital blackmail, despite most having studied only till class 5 to 10.

The SSP said those arrested have been sent to jail. “A case has been lodged and they have all been put behind bars…work is on to arrest the 10 named accused who are absconding,” he said.

“They used to defraud people using different methods. They would make people download APK files, sometimes sending online marriage invites to people. As soon as one would download that card, money would get deducted from their accounts. Many times, they would target new credit card holders and dupe them of money by making them download a link,” said ASP Rural, Suresh Chandra Rawat.

Cases have been registered under sections 318(4), 336(3), 338, 340(2), 111(3), 132 and 191(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with Sections 66(B) and 66(C) of the IT Act that pertain to relevant sections for cheating by impersonation using communication devices, dishonest or fraudulent use of electronic records, creating fake digital documents, using forged documents and criminal conspiracy etc.