Bengaluru, Oct 23 (IANS): The Cyber Crime Division of the Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has busted a racket involving a five-member gang which allegedly created fake profiles of famous personalities on various social media sites.
The CID claimed that its investigation has revealed misuse of Aadhaar cards by the miscreants and also the serious flaw in the verification process followed by the mobile service providers in issuing new connections.
The police added that the modus operandi of the gang was to create fake profiles and fake e-wallet accounts by furnishing phone numbers using fake Aadhaar card details.
A special team of the CID camped in Rajasthan for more than 10 days to nab the culprits.
"After creating fake profiles, one of the gang members used to send friend requests to people and citing urgency, they used to ask for money to be transferred on fake e-wallet accounts created by them. After receiving the money, they used to close down such accounts. This appears to be a country-wide racket," a police officer told reporters.
According to the CID, four of the five arrested persons -- Ansar, Balvinder Singh, Saini and Saddam -- are from Kaman tehsil in Bharatpur in Rajasthan.
The police added that the fifth and prime accused, Shakeel, who created the fake profiles on Facebook, is still on the run.
The CID added that the accused persons had created fake profiles using Aadhaar card data of police officers and other government officials from Karnataka to dupe gullible people.
A senior IPS officer, P. Harishekaran, was one such victim, whose fake profile was created for duping people.