Pune: Sleuths from the Cyber Crime Cell of the Pune police nabbed three persons from Jharkhand for allegedly duping people under the pretext of lottery prizes after using their data from online shopping portal Naaptol.

The arrests were made following a complaint from one Vishal Chandar Chauhan of Warje, who was duped of Rs 2.44 lakh. The accused had called him up saying he had won a lottery of Rs 13 lakh and asked him to deposit various amounts as charges in different bank accounts. Chauhan paid up to Rs 2.44 lakh, but he was not given the prize money, following which he lodged an FIR with Warje Malwadi police.

While investigating the case, sleuths from the Cyber Crime Cell received information about presence of the accused in Ramgarh, Jharkhand. Accordingly, a team was sent and the accused were nabbed. The arrested persons were identified as Roshankumar Kishore Mistry (22), a native of Bihar, who lives in Ramgarh College Colony in Jharkhand, and his accomplices Jitendrakumar Aso Raut (27) and Subodhkumar Dinesh Chaudhary (20). They were brought to Pune on Monday. The police claimed to have seized 32 mobile phones, 33 SIM cards, seven debit cards, 16 rubber stamps, and details of people from various states including Maharashtra.

DCP (Cyber Cell) Sudhir Hiremath said, “They are frauds who used Naaptol’s data to dupe people. They used to call up victims and tell them that based on their previous shopping, the company is giving a cash prize and also a scratch card. To release the prize money, they charged a processing fee from the victims. Till now two or three persons from Pune have submitted cheating complaints. But we expect more complainants from different areas.”