A gang of six, operating from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, by posing as executives of popular chains of restaurants, clothing and other international brands, were caught by the Cyber Crime police of Cyberabad for cheating the gullible.

Police said that they were running an office in Noida and ran a team with technically sound individuals to convince the victims that they are legitimate businessmen. The scam came to light when one of the victims from Bachupally was cheated to the tune of ?94.95 lakh with an offer of setting up a branch of an international burger chain franchise. 

Police Commissioner Stephen Raveendra explained that the mastermind behind the scam, Rakesh Kumar alias Aditya Singh, rented a place in Noida and recruited Mohammad Khalid for website development, Pankaj Sarswat alias Gagan, and Roshini Singh Goutam alias Arpitha Singh for telecalling, along with Yogender Kumar for running ads through SEO.

“He instructed Khalid to develop a website on the burger chain franchise, and through Yogender collected victim data. He along with his telecallers convinced the victims for initiation of payment for the allocation of franchise in the name of franchise fee, agreement fee, NoC, fee for interiors, and woodwork infrastructure setup. He trained telecallers by providing calling formats and also shared mule bank accounts to the victims and got transfers done into them. He also deputed agents to make a visit to the site for site confirmation and initiated the interior work at the site,” explained the official. 

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