The suspects even extorted Rs 50 lakh as an advance for the ticket from the politician. Most of the siphoned money was converted to crypto-currency and stashed in a wallet.
The police have seized the mobile phone having the wallet named Octafx, which contains around $59,000.
The suspects were found to be using a spoofing application named Viberplus. The accused searched the numbers of senior officers on the internet by surfing the government portals and registered them on the application, after which calls were made from the desired numbers.
The arrested men were identified as Justin Mohanlal Pareira (46), Dasrath Makwana (33) and his, cousin, Naresh Kumar (36) from Gujarat, and Himanshu Singh (22) from Lucknow. The suspects initially dealt in multi-level marketing and crypto-currency business, but resorted to crime for easy money.
The operation, which was kept under the wraps, was conducted along with sleuths of an intelligence agency. The accused, part of an elaborate racket, were produced in court and taken on police remand for interrogation. They have subsequently been sent to Tihar jail in judicial custody.
The police had filed an FIR on February 17 on a complaint received from a government official and started covert tracking of the suspects. As per documents submitted in court, two of the calls were made on January 31 and February 16 to a senior IPS officer, seeking favours regarding transfer of some police officers.
The IPS officer was asked by the crooks -- impersonating an official from the office of a chief minister -- to meet a politician as well and gave names of three police officials for the transfer as a "test task". The officer verified the call after hanging up and it was established that it was a fake. On this, an FIR under IPC sections of impersonation, fraud, cheating and criminal conspiracy, apart from section 66 C of the Information Technology Act, was registered with Delhi Police.
The police conducted analysis of the internet protocol address details records (IPDR logs) and concluded that the call was made from a spoofed number. Technical surveillance revealed the use of Viberplus application after which details were sought from the firm and the service provider. The suspects were subsequently arrested.
During interrogation, the accused told cops that Justin, Dasrath and Naresh came in contact with Himanshu Singh in Lucknow in connection with their marketing and crypto business. During one such meeting, Himanshu told them about an app through which he could make a call from anyone's number.
This prompted the trio to hatch a plan to extort money from a politician they knew. They promised him a Lok Sabha ticket.
The police informed the court that it had recovered four mobile phones and a dongle from the suspects. Citing the grounds of remand, the cops had told the court that the investigation was at an initial stage and that the accused persons had hatched a conspiracy in which they spoofed numbers of senior officials.
"They are yet to be interrogated in detail regarding the involvement of any real government official. Two of the suspects are hiding in UP and the accused can help in their arrest. The cheated amount through spoofing is yet to be recovered and their mobile phones are to be checked in their presence," the cops said in their remand paper.
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