Two held for misusing loan seekers’ bank a/cs

Patna: Police have busted a cyberfraud racket in Patna and arrested two accused for allegedly trapping people with promises of loans and govt schemes before misusing their bank accounts for cybercrimes.Patna cyber DSP Nitish Chandra Dhariya said the accused targeted people seeking loans or benefits under welfare schemes. “They would convince them to open current accounts and then take custody of their passbooks, ATM cards, SIM cards, cheque books and other important documents. These accounts were later used to route money from various cyber crimes, including investment scams, online gaming frauds and other illegal transactions,” he said on Saturday.He added many victims remained unaware of the fraud until they received notices from banks.Acting on a tip-off, a special team was formed under the guidance of Patna SSP Kartikeya K Sharma and supervision of SP (west) Bhanu Pratap Singh. Police raided the Ramkrishna Nagar area and arrested Sanjay Kumar of Nalanda district and Abhishek Kumar of Nawada district.Police said Sanjay was the main operator while Abhishek assisted him. During the raid, police recovered 11 cellphones, one laptop, 12 ATM cards, 13 cheque books and one passbook.The DSP said the accused used accounts opened in the names of loan seekers and beneficiaries of schemes such as Kisan Samman Nidhi to siphon off money linked to cyber fraud cases across the country. Further investigation is underway to trace the wider network and other associates.