The person whose identity gets stolen will suffer negative consequences. (Photo credit: Unsplash)
New Delhi: A day after a 28-year-old man was arrested for tricking families of missing children by using police records the police located a group with a similar way of operating. They found out that a group of people were using information about missing people, particularly kids and cars from a police system called ZIPNET to scam people.
Police plan to remove contact details of complainants from database
The new approach by the scammers has prompted the North Delhi police district to ask the Delhi Police Crime Branch to remove the phone numbers of the complainants from the database to prevent this kind of scamming.
Mohammad Shabir, a 19-year-old, and his group of three were browsing through the ZIPNET websites to find stolen cars in the city. They would then call the owners of these stolen cars and lie to them, saying they could help get their cars back if they paid a certain amount of money.
The police said that Shabir was caught because he was involved in a motorcycle theft case filed a month ago at the Sarai Rohilla police station. The victim received a message about the stolen motorcycle’s location and was asked to pay 5,000 rupees to find out its whereabouts.
How police tracked suspect’s location
After transferring 1,500 rupees, the victim was then asked for the remaining 3,500 rupees, police said. When the victim tried to call back, the suspect blocked the number. The police tracked the suspect’s location and finally caught him in a raid.
“During the investigation, the complainant reported receiving a message regarding the stolen motorcycle’s location. The sender demanded Rs 5,000 before disclosing the whereabouts and forwarded a QR code for fund transfer,” Manoj Kumar Meena, DCP (north) was quoted as saying by the Times of India.
This isn’t the first time such an incident has happened in which the scammers have used the database to target people. Earlier in August, the police arrested a 27-year-old man named Raj Kumar for stealing cars.
What is ZIPNET
According to the police, he would contact the complainants after their details were put on ZIPNET, show them the vehicle through a video call and ask for money in exchange for revealing the car’s location. Once the money was transferred to the account number sent by him to deposit the amount, he would stop communicating with victims. It is worth mentioning that the ZIPNET system was created to help different state police work together, especially to find missing people and locate wanted criminals.
