Ongole: The Bapatla district police have arrested members of a pan-India cybercrime gang who were defrauding people by misusing the names of government schemes.

District SP Tushar Dudi explained details about the arrests on Friday. He said that recently, they registered a case at Chirala II Town Police Station involving fraud of Rs 1.64 lakh under the pretext of the Janani Suraksha Yojana health scheme. The criminals, who used the Chief Minister’s photo as their WhatsApp profile picture, targeted Anganwadi teachers and new mothers in the Chirala area. The investigation revealed that a group of fraudsters operated a call centre in Delhi and used 96 SIM cards to defraud 132 people across five States, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jharkhand, amassing approximately Rs 66 lakh. The gang used the BLINKIT online delivery application to make purchases using victims’ UPI IDs and later sold the items at lower prices.

Tushar Dudi explained that they arrested Achari Ranjit Singh, a native of Nepal but currently residing at Allagadda in Andhra Pradesh, Avulamanda Venkata Narayana of Komarole mandal in Prakasam district, and Jatin alias Sahil of West Delhi. He said that they recovered Rs 1.90 lakh in cash, three mobile phones, 15 SIM cards, two ATM cards, and four bank passbooks from their possession.

The SP said that the investigation revealed that the accused were linked to 213 FIRs across 20 States and four Union Territories, with total fraudulent transactions amounting to approximately Rs 4 crore. He said that the accused were part of a gang that was previously arrested in January 2023 in connection with cyber fraud cases in Porumamilla and

Kadapa. SP Tushar Dudi urged the people not to trust unknown callers claiming to be government officials and advised them to report cybercrimes to the toll-free number 1930 immediately. He emphasised that government officials never send unknown links or make such calls regarding schemes.