Instagram account verification fraudsters held

New Delhi | Two persons were arrested by the police for duping people on the pretext of verifying their Instagram accounts, a police officer said on Saturday.

According to social networking service Instagram, a verified badge is a Blue Tick that appears next to an Instagram account’s name in search, and on the profile.

It means that the Instagram has confirmed that an account is the authentic presence of the public figure, celebrity or brand it represents.

The official said a woman lodged a complaint at Cyber Police Station, Dwarka alleging that her son was cheated by unknown fraudsters of Rs 14,400.

She stated that her 15-year-old son got a mobile number for verifying his Instagram account. When her son contacted that number the caller asked him to deposit Rs 6,000 through UPI.

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Afterwards, her son was again forced to deposit Rs 5,700 as his account was blocked. The third time, the fraudsters demanded Rs 2,700 more for further course of action.

As the complainant’s son realised that he had been cheated, he demanded his money back, however, the alleged persons refused to pay the amount and blocked him.

Accordingly, based on this complaint, the police registered a case under section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and took up the investigation.

During investigation beneficiary details of alleged fraudulent transactions were obtained from PhonePe, UPI and Kotak Mahindra bank.

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On the basis of a technical analysis, a police team conducted raid in Pitampura and Rohini area and apprehended one accused Shivam Dev (19), a first year BA student, and on his instance the second accused Shubham Kumar (21), who is said to be mastermind of the scam was also nabbed.

During interrogation, both the accused disclosed that they used to look for the Instagram users whose accounts were not verified.

Thereafter, they sent them messages through different IDs for verifying their accounts.

Whenever any user showed interest, they demanded money through UPI and once the money was received, they used to block the senders.