Raxaul: Police in Bihar have arrested a serving havaldar of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and a hawala dealer for being part of a cyber fraud gang. The arrested havaldar is Pankaj Pandey, posted in the 47th battalion of SSB in Raxaul. The other arrested person is Mohammad Javed, a hawala trader from Nagar police station area. Police said both were involved in an interstate cyber fraud racket that converted black money into white using crypto currency.
Cyber DSP Abhinav Parasar said that Pankaj Pandey used his establishment’s account called Pankaj Enterprises to collect fraud money. Within a week, about Rs 19 lakh came into this account and Rs 17 lakh was quickly withdrawn. Police have put Rs 1.80 lakh on hold for investigation. During the raid, police recovered a rifle, a pistol, three magazines, 16 pistol bullets, five rifle bullets, many passbooks, ATM cards and other documents from his house.
Police also seized Rs 10 lakh 30 thousand cash, a note counting machine, a laptop, cheque books, ATM cards, registration papers of two vehicles, small diaries with account details, and three mobile phones from different places. Mohammad Javed used to convert black money into white on the instructions of Dayashankar, who is still absconding. They used USDT and other crypto methods to hide their money trails. Javed sold USDT even while raids were ongoing.
The cyber fraud gang operated under the codename ‘Boss’ and kept notes of all their transactions in pocket diaries. Police said these diaries have information about crores of rupees and names of many new people linked to the racket. So far, six members of this gang have been arrested and sent to jail. Police are now searching for other gang members to stop this growing cyber crime network in the district.
