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The Adugodi police in southeastern Bengaluru said they dismantled a cybercrime racket with the arrests of 12 men, mostly hailing from Uttar Pradesh, who allegedly duped people with work-from-home scams described as too good to be true.
At the heart of the operation were two unlikely masterminds—Harshavardhan Ojha, a 25-year-old BTech graduate from Balia, UP; and Sonu, 27, a high school dropout-turned-labourer from Mumbai who is native of Prayagraj. While one was tech-savvy but jobless, the other used his network of labourers to facilitate the scam, according to the police.
Their gang included Akash Kumar Yadav, 23; Gorakhnath Yadav, 20; Sanjith Kumar, 25, (from Bihar); Akash Kumar, 19; Amith Yadav, 19; Gaurav Pratap Singh, 22; Brijesh Singh, 20; Raj Mishra, 21; Tushar Mishra, 22; and Gautam Shailesh, 25, all from different towns in UP.
What the police uncovered during the bust is staggering: 400 SIM cards, 140 ATM cards, 17 cheque books, 27 mobile phones, 22 bank passbooks, a detailed ledger of income and expenses, and Rs 15,000.
According to the police, on January 22, 2025, a homemaker reported losing Rs 5 lakh after being tricked into believing she had secured a work-from-home job. The scammers claimed her “low credit score” needed to be fixed before she could receive her payment—and convinced her to transfer the money in multiple tranches.
The money trail led the Adugodi police to a bank account opened in the victim’s name. An investigation revealed that it was created at the behest of Sonu, who had used labourers to open fake accounts, with a commission of Rs 1,500 per account. Accounts in nationalised banks fetched even more—up to Rs 20,000 per account.
On April 19, the police nabbed Sonu in Mumbai, and within days, all the other accused were arrested. They were presented before a UP court on April 27, brought to Bengaluru on transit remand, and are now in judicial custody.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
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