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Thirty-five individuals were arrested and 54 held nether preventive custody successful an inter-State month-long crackdown against cybercrime by the West district’s Cyber Police unit, an serviceman said connected Wednesday (May 20, 2026).
The crackdown was portion of investigations into assorted cybercrimes, including integer arrests, concern frauds, APK record scams, fake dating memberships, and mule relationship operations, involving funds of up to ₹70 crore.
Hundreds of SIM and ATM cards were besides recovered during raids and arrests conducted successful April, said the police.
“Multiple dedicated teams worked time and nighttime connected method surveillance, fiscal way analyses, integer quality gathering and conducted coordinated inter-State raids past month, starring to these arrests, which exposed highly organised cyber networks progressive successful routing and laundering cheated wealth done mule accounts, cryptocurrency and layered transactions,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Darade Sharad Bhaskar.
Dramatic flight bid
In 1 case, the constabulary recovered a blase mule relationship and OTP routing syndicate operating from Karampura. “On April 12, a squad comprising Sub-Inspectors and caput constables raided the premises from wherever the syndicate was being operated,” arsenic per a connection from the DCP’s Office.
As the squad reached the spot, the accused tried to flight by jumping from the 4th level of the multi-storey building. “However, each accused — Bittoo Chaudhary, Lavish Chugh, Rishi, Arun Singh, Ashish, and Deepak Bhatt — were arrested. They were recovered to beryllium successful possession of ATM cards, SIM cards, banking documents and credentials of mule relationship holders,” work the statement.
The constabulary recovered 43 smartphones, 313 SIM cards, 184 ATM cards, 51 cheque books, 2 passbooks and 2 laptops from the suspects. “Further probe revealed that 35 NCRP (National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal) complaints amounting to a full of ₹40 crore were registered against them crossed Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh,” work the statement.
Fake dating club
In different operation, a fake dating nine rank fraud was busted. “Cyber fraud done fake dating nine rank schemes has emerged arsenic 1 of the astir deceptive forms of online fraud targeting emotionally susceptible citizens,” Mr. Bhaskar said.
The probe led the constabulary to 3 Uttar Pradesh residents — Sachin Rawat, Akshay Kumar Baliyan and Kartikey Choudhary. Mr. Kartikey, a Saharanpur-based writer associated with a integer quality outlet, is accused of arranging and supplying astir 40 mule slope accounts to cyber fraud operators. “He was recovered to beryllium successful interaction with aggregate syndicates operating from Gorakhpur and Bangalore,” said the DCP.
The lawsuit came to airy aft a antheral filed a ailment of being defrauded of astir ₹1,60,000 successful a fake dating exertion scam.
“The complainant told the constabulary that helium clicked a nexus attached to an advertisement for a dating application. The nexus led him to a Telegram bot wherever helium was asked to bargain a ‘VIP membership’ and subsequently asked to transportation wealth for assorted specified schemes,” the connection added.
The investigators traced the IP addresses to Africa and a fiscal withdrawal by 1 of the accused from Bangalore.
“Investigation revealed that the syndicate had inter-State and perchance planetary links, with integer trails extending up to Africa-based IP addresses. They utilized fake Telegram identities and integer platforms to emotionally manipulate victims and way cheated wealth done mule accounts earlier converting the funds into cryptocurrency,” said the DCP. The accused were recovered to beryllium progressive successful 28 NCRP complaints.
Another lawsuit progressive the integer apprehension of a elder national who was led to judge helium was progressive successful a money-laundering case.
Officers followed the wealth way and conducted raids successful Ludhiana successful Punjab and Jamshedpur successful Jharkhand. The accused — Ashok Kumar, Suraj Kumar, Deepu Kumar and Vivek Kumar — were arrested for operating mule slope accounts and converting cheated wealth into cryptocurrency done layered fiscal transactions.
“The wide quantum of wealth progressive successful these cases is implicit ₹70 crore. Search is connected for absconding criminals associated with these syndicates, and further probe is nether way,” the elder serviceman said.
