Odisha Police bust dacoity gang and cyber fraud racket in Keonjhar

Bhubaneswar: Odisha police has busted a major dacoity gang and cyber fraud racket on Wednesday in Barbil town of Odisha’s Keonjhar district. The police have arrested six people, including an alleged woman mastermind who is said to have links with the infamous ‘Jamtara gang’ of Jharkhand.

The incident came to light after a truck driver lodged a complaint about being robbed. On June 4, the truck driver lodged a complaint alleging that he was attacked with a deadly weapon by a group of men armed with sharp weapons near Raida Chhak and robbed of his mobile phone and cash. The attackers allegedly fled from the spot after robbing him.

Later, around Rs 1,86,500 was stolen from his bank account through an online app by using his stolen mobile phone. Then the miscreants had transferred the money from his bank account through fraudulent transactions. A complaint was filed in this regard at Badabil police station on July 6.

Upon investigation, the police found that around 9 to 10 people from Badabil and Joda areas have formed a gang and have been operating various crimes in the area including theft, robbery and dacoity for a long time. There main target were allegedly truck drivers.

Police have arrested Chandrabati Patra of the Thakurani area and  seized 12 mobile phones, 26 bank passbooks and 28 SIM cards from her house during search.

Barbil SDPO Debendranath Pingua said, “During the investigation, we found that the stolen mobile phones were being sold to Chandrabati Patra. She is expert in cyber fraud, and we also found her links with the Jamtara gang. The gang used the stolen phones to access UPI and banking applications and take money from victims’ accounts. During the search, we recovered 12 mobile phones, 24 bank passbooks and 26 SIM cards.”