Bhopal Police have uncovered an inter-state gang from Bihar involved in creating and distributing fake Aadhaar, PAN cards, bank accounts, and SIM cards across the country. The police, in a raid on their call center, apprehended seven suspects including the gang leader.
Commissioner Harinarayanchari Mishra shared with Aaj Tak that Hanumanganj police received intelligence about individuals acquiring numerous SIM cards with different Aadhaar cards from a mobile shop. Upon visiting the shop, they found the photos on the Aadhaar cards to be identical, though the names and addresses varied, raising suspicion of fraudulent activity.
A case was filed under sections BNS 319(3), 318(4), 338, 336(3), 340 (2) and a local team raided a flat in Ibrahimganj, leading to the detention of six men and a woman. They identified themselves as Shashikant Kumar aka Manish, Sapna aka Sadhana, Ankit Kumar Sahu aka Sunil, Kaushal Mali aka Pankaj, Roshan Kumar, Ranjan Kumar aka Vinod, and Mohammed Titu aka Vijay during questioning.
During the raid, a large number of fake Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, SIM cards, bank passbooks, mobile phones, laptops, printers, and copies of documents were seized from the flat. All seven suspects were taken into custody. One member of the gang, Sanjay, remains at large.
According to the Police Commissioner, the suspects revealed that Shashikant obtained Aadhaar card data from Deoghar (Jharkhand). He would verify which Aadhaar cards had PAN cards and which did not, applying offline for the missing ones.
Main accused Shashikant then used Photoshop to place photos of gang members on those Aadhaar and PAN cards based on their ages. He printed the forged Aadhaar and PAN cards using a color printer and used them to procure SIM cards from various stores across Bhopal, subsequently opening fake bank accounts.
Shashikant paid his gang members 2,000 rupees per account opened and sold these fraudulent bank accounts to other fraudsters at 10,000 rupees each. Additionally, Shashikant and his associates engaged in cyber fraud by offering loans or games using these accounts. Commissioners stated that the suspects confessed to opening fake accounts in Lucknow, Indore, and Hyderabad previously, conducting various frauds. The gang leader hails from Nalanda district in Bihar, while the rest are from Patna and Jehanabad.
