Four arrested by police for involvement in an online rummy scam in Vizag

Four fraudsters were arrested for being involved in an online rummy cheating case in Vizag on Monday. The four were identified as Kare Tatarao, running cell point called Nani Cell Point & Airtel retail business at V Narsapuram, K Jagannadham of Rambilli, V Janakiram Reddy of Pedagentyada and Y Bandayya of Rambilli Mandal.

Briefing on the case, New Port police said, in order to play the online card game rummy and withdraw winning amounts from the rummy apps, users need to update their bank account details, Aadhaar Card and PAN Card details with the app, for which the fraudster adopted the following methods to gain themselves by means of cheating. Accused no. 1 in the rummy cheating case, who is a retailer, has been running a cell point in Vizag for the last six months. He is able to access Mitra App, which is created by Airtel intending to manage individual Airtel Retailer Account & services in one place.

Ever since the lockdown began, with the support of the other three, he acquired KYC documents (including PAN) from some selected persons by paying some amount or in the name of creating Airtel Payments Bank accounts and creating new SIM Cards by using their KYC authentication and subsequently creating Airtel Payments Bank accounts with those new SIM cards with an ulterior motive of playing online rummy.

After the successful registration of Airtel Payments Bank accounts with new SIM cards, they used to create online rummy accounts at online rummy apps like Rummy Culture and Rummy Circle. Since the PAN Card is mandatory to withdraw winning amounts from Online Rummy Apps, they used to collect PAN cards of those selected customers. If any customer does not have a PAN Card, immediately these fraudsters apply for a PAN card to the Central Income Tax Department in the name of those selected customers by giving their own email IDs instead of customer email ID and getting new e-PAN Cards from the Income Tax Department. After using some SIM cards for their personal use for playing online rummy, they used to sell the remaining SIM Cards to other players ranging up to Rs 3000.

Since online rummy games are banned in Andhra Pradesh, these fraudsters used fake GPS to mask their original location. Betting starts from Rs 10 and go up to Rs 2,000 and winnings ranging from Rs 6 – Rs 8,000. Three or four persons of this group would enter the same table by joining at the same time and co-operate with each other, disclosing cards to each other and thereby cheating other outside persons involved in that table. “Since they are playing from the same location, they collide with one another, having a 90% winning chance. Each person was gaining around 40,000 to 45,000 per month,” Police said.

Cases were booked by New Port police station under Cr.No.240/2021 U/s.420, 419, 463, 465, 468, 471 r/w 34 IPC And Sec.66 C & D of IT Act.