Four men have been arrested from Delhi for their alleged involvement in cheating and online forgery of digital signature of a senior official of the directorate general of foreign trade, resulting in unauthorised transfer of Rs 82 lakh to various accounts.

Based on a complaint lodged by officials of the Calcutta wing of the directorate — an office attached to the Union ministry of commerce and industry — Calcutta police had started investigating the fraud on December 11.

According to the complaint, the fraudsters had forged the digital signature of the authorised person and accessed the website of the directorate and enabled an unauthorised transaction of Rs 82 lakh.

Officers of the cyber cell of the Calcutta police, who investigated the case, located the accounts where the money was transferred.

While tracking the account details, the police zeroed in on the gang that was operating from Delhi.

The accused — Chandan Bhatia, 43, Subham, 24, Suraj Sharma, 28, and Amarjeet Singh, 28, all residents of Delhi — were arrested by a team of the city police and brought to Calcutta on transit remand.

They were produced in a court in Calcutta on Monday and remanded in police custody till January 7.

The police said the four were picked up from a flat on the 19th floor of Capital Green, DLF, a plush highrise complex in Motinagar, on Christmas evening.

A large number of mobile phones, bank passbooks, digital signature certificates, unauthorised stamps of banks and several companies and Wi-Fi dongles were seized from their possession.

The accused have been charged with cheating, forgery, fraud and criminal conspiracy and also under the information technology act.

The police suspect the gang was part of a larger racket that is operating in various parts of the country.

“It appears that there are more people in the gang who could be hiding across the country,” said an officer at Lalbazar.