Four Coimbatore youths arrested for cheating people of Rs 5.35 lakh posing as cops

KARUR: The cybercrime police attached to the Karur district police in Tamil Nadu on Thursday arrested four youths from Coimbatore who had posed as cops and cheated several people of a total of Rs 5.35 lakh in the past two months.

The arrested have been K Madhavan, 19, of Vadavalli in Coimbatore, B Gowtham Siddharth, 19, of Saibaba Colony, S John Peter, 19, of Vadavalli and S Santhana Sornakumar, 19, of Vadavalli. They were arrested for cheating V Surendar, 28, of Thanthonimalai in Karur district of Rs 5,000.

On December 13, Surendar received a call from a mobile number. The caller introduced himself as sub-inspector Murugan of Tambaram crime police station and summoned him to the station for an inquiry over his mobile number being part of a WhatsApp group run by porn creators. He threatened to arrest Surendar if he failed to turn up for the inquiry.

The caller told him to pay a fine of Rs 5,000 to let him off from the case. Afraid of action, Surendar transferred Rs 5,000 to number using Google Pay. A mobile application identified the number of the caller as spam.

So, Surendar lodged a complaint with the cybercrime police. Acting on the complaint, the police managed to nab the accused.

The police said that Madhavan was a first year college student. Gowtham and John Peter discontinued their diploma courses. Santhana Sornakuma, a graduate, was working in a photo studio.

The four become friends during their football practices. They made friends with Sabari and Moorthy who guided them in the cybercrimes. Sabari and Moorthy were yet to be arrested, police said.

The gang would select a number randomly from the Truecaller application and call them. They would keep the walkie-talkie sound on in the background to match the police station effect.

They would buy SIM cards in the name of some people from northern states. They would keep changing bank accounts too every month. Madhavan would pose as an inspector, and Gowtham would act as sub-inspector.

In the past two months, the gang cheated several people of Rs 5.35 lakh using the same modus operandi, according to police. They spent the money extravagantly. Several cybercrime cases were pending against the accused in Trichy, Coimbatore and Erode districts.

Karur superintendent of police E Sundaravathanam appealed to people to not to fall prey to such fraudsters and report such cybercrimes to the helpline 1930.