6 lose over 5L in e-challan scam, Haryana man held

Kolkata: Police urged citizens to check the genuineness of a traffic challan message before making a payment, warning that cybercrooks are sending fake links, similar to the original payment gateway.The detective department cybercrime branch has arrested a Haryana-based businessman, Deepak Kumar (29), who was involved in six such cases, duping multiple people from Kolkata of over Rs 5 lakh. Among the victims is a person, who lost Rs 60,000, said joint CP (crime & traffic) Rupesh Kumar.
But Deepak claimed he was set up even as he replied to all the four notices served on him and came to Kolkata to honour the notices before he was arrested. The arrest was made, based on a case registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station on Sept 12, 2025. The six victims were duped of Rs 5,43,024.Police said the accused sent a phishing SMS, containing a fraudulent link, disguised as an e-challan against the victims' vehicle numbers. The money was deducted from their accounts without authorisation after they clicked on the link.The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) reported that a fraudulent "mParivahan" APK file was hosted on a server linked to 2 IP addresses associated with an IntechDC support team. IntechDC, police said, confirmed the server was registered using a Gmail ID. Google's response indicated the email was accessed through an IP address belonging to SBL Telecom, Gurugram, which in turn was mapped to another IP registered in the name of Deepak Kumar. Police said certified copies of account opening forms, KYC documents, and subscriber records were seized.