Hyderabad: A Fake franchise gang that lured people of Rs 94,95,538 by creating fake KFC websites was busted by the Cyber Crime Police, Cyberabad.
Police nabbed Rakesh Kumar, Yogender Kumar, Mohammad Khalid, Pankaj Saraswat and Sarita and seized 7 Mobile phones, 3 laptops, 5 CPUs, and 1 LED projector along with chequebooks, debit cards, SIM cards from their possession.
The accused were booked under sections 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forges a person with a valuable document), 468 (commits forgery), 120(B) (Punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66-C, 66-D ITA-2000-2008 of Cyber Crime Commissionerate.
This gang who operated from UP and Bihar collected details of people interested in getting a dealership and designed fake websites where they promised them franchises at attractive costs and collect payments under the garb of franchise fees, agreement fees, NOC, fees for interior, woodwork infrastructure setup etc.
The accused Rakesh Kumar, Mohammad Khalid, who is the mastermind behind the act, recruited Khalid for website development, and Gagan, Pankaj, and Roshini Singh Goutam, Arpitha Singh for tele-calling, along with Yugender for running ads through SEO.
He along with his tele-callers convinced victims to initiate payment and also shared mule bank accounts with the victims and got transfers done into them.
Gaining the trust of the victim by sending confirmation emails through a fake KFC domain, Rakesh also deputed someone to make a visit to the site for site confirmation and initiated the interior work at the site.
To bluff the victims, the accused procured land line virtual number to communicate with victims from Mumbai while operating from Noida.
They impersonate company executives (account managers, senior managers, etc.) and make conversations over fake emails and acknowledge the victim’s payments with fake invoices.
Likewise, fake websites of well-known brands like IFFCO, ITC, TATA 1MG, Herbal Ayurveda, Jockey etc were also developed by the gang.
Poice has advised the citizens to verify the authenticity of the websites shown on the internet by visiting their corporate offices and checking the original name and IFSC code of the bank accounts before making payments.
Citizens have also been advised to learn the process of establishing franchises and avoid making transactions before verification.
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