A 21-year-old man from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh has been arrested for allegedly creating a fake profile of a Bengal bureaucrat on a social networking site and duping people.
The Bidhannagar Commissionerate’s cyber crime division picked up Bilal, who apparently uses only his first name, from near his house based on a complaint lodged by the IAS officer.
Biswajit Ghosh, deputy commissioner, detective department, of the Bidhannagar Commissionerate, said: “P.B. Salim had lodged the complaint with the Salt Lakecyber crime police station in September last year.”
Ghosh said that Bilal had used the officer’s photographs from his original profile to create a fake profile on a social networking site.
“Bilal would then send messages to all the contacts on the officer’s friend list and ask them to send him money on various pretexts,” said Ghosh.
Many on the bureaucrat’s friend list allegedly sent Bilal money on a mobile wallet that he would provide the link for.
The matter came to light apparently when people started calling the bureaucrat to confirm whether he had received the money and he realised that someone had opened a fake social media account in his name.
Salim could not be reached for comment on Saturday.
“Bilal would send them requests to send him money citing various reasons including travel, loss or lock of his debit card among others. Bilal would also send them a number linked to a mobile wallet as well as a link to where they could send money,” Ghosh added.
Officers then traced Bilalby tracking down the IP address that was used to create the fake account.
“Once we had managed to triangulate his position we sent a team to arrest him,” another officer of the Bidhannagar Commissionerate said.
Bilal was picked up from near his house. The smartphone that Bilal used in the crime was seized.
Bilal has been sent to police remand for four days.