Two men were arrested in the Bidhannagar area on Sunday on charges of cheating people in the name of online delivery of hand sanitisers, face shields, gloves, and masks, police said.

They apparently cheated a person with an order worth Rs 5 lakh by posing as a facilitator. They would act as contacts between wholesale dealers and customers who did not want to step out to collect their orders.

As part of their modus operandi, the two would tell people they would contact a wholesale dealer of such items before getting a bill issued against orders placed. They would take the bill to a client and collect the sum, promising to deliver the items at their homes, the police said.

“But they would make excuses and say the consignment had been delivered at a wrong address,” an officer of Bidhannagar North police station where a complaint had been lodged on September 4.

It was only when the complainant was told the same thing a couple of times — goods he had ordered had been delivered to a wrong address and it would take some time for the goods to reach him — did he realise the fraud.

Cops started investigating the matter based on his complaint and found the involvement of the two men. They have identified as Biswajit Das and Abhijit Dey.

They have been booked for cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy. They were produced in Bidhannagar court on Monday.

The pandemic has forced many people to shift to the online mode for making payments and purchases, which they did not do earlier.

“Hundreds of people are falling prey to online crimes… people tend to believe online advertisements and start calling up numbers they see on the Internet without realising the numbers could be fake,” an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.