Ahmedabad: The City Crime Branch today nabbed one accused hailing from Jharkhand who was part of a gang involved in illegally extorting e-memo fines from thousands of vehicle drivers in the name of the Ahmedabad Traffic Police. The accused had created a fake website by altering the name of a government website, deceiving people, and collecting money in the name of e-challans.

Giving information about the case, ACP Bharat Patel said, “Ahmedabad Police has installed CCTV cameras under the Smart City project. These cameras capture screenshots of traffic violations and send them to the NIC (National Informatics Centre). Afterward, the Ahmedabad Police issue a challan. In this case, the arrested accused, along with accomplices, used to find those who violated traffic rules, impersonating traffic police officers. They defrauded people by demanding payment of the fines.”

As per their modus operandi, “the accused would visit the official government website where they would randomly enter vehicle numbers from series GJ01 and GJ27. Using this method, they would identify traffic rule violators whose fines remained unpaid. Subsequently, they would use these numbers on the website of an insurance company to obtain information about the vehicle owner and the violator. This information was available on the website of the Sundaram Finance Company, which handles vehicle insurance. Armed with this information, the accused would call the traffic rule violator Ahmedabad Traffic Police and claim they owed traffic fines. Initially, people fell victim to this scheme, believing the call was from the traffic police, only to later find that it was a fraud,” Patel added.

After an investigation, the Ahmedabad City Crime Branch registered a case against one Sudhanshu, also known as Chiku Mishra, from Deoghar District in Jharkhand. He and his friend defrauded several traffic rule violators. Other individuals involved in the scheme are from Kolkata and go by the names Rajesh and Saptam Kumar. As of now, during the investigation, we have only identified frauds involving people from Gujarat. However, as the investigation progresses, other cases from different states may come to light, Patel said.

Regarding the question about whether the fine amounts paid to the victims of the fraud would be forgone, Patel said that a decision regarding that matter will be made later. According to preliminary investigations, the fraud involved lakhs of rupees, and further investigation will be carried out by the Cyber Crime Branch of the Ahmedabad City Police. DeshGujarat

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