Hyderabad: Eight persons arrested for cheating people in digital marketing scam

Police seized eight laptops, 89 cellphones, 4950 SIM cards and Rs 50,000 in cash was seized from the accused.

Hyderabad, Jan 23: Eight persons were on Monday arrested for allegedly indulging in forgery and cheating in the name of providing contact numbers of potential customers for digital marketing.

Sleuths of special operation team of Rachakonda Commissionerate arrested Miryala Sandeep and seven others here and seized from them eight laptops, 89 cell phones, 4950 SIM cards and some 600 non-activated SIM cards besides Rs 50,000 in cash, said police commissioner Mahesh M Bhagwat.

They were supposed to collect the phone numbers and email IDs of potential customers and provide them to the service providers or manufacturers for the purpose of digital marketing. However, the accused purchased a huge number of SIM cards from the agents of cellular service providers, got them activated with fake IDs, and provided these numbers to the manufacturers and the service providers, the Commissioner said.

Manufacturers or service providers paid a fee or commission for this purpose. But the accused cheated them, providing them phone numbers of fake customers. When the calls were made to these numbers for marketing purpose, the accused attended the call posing as customers.

Once a call was attended, the money fixed by the manufacturer or service provider was automatically credited to the accused's' accounts.

PTI