Delhi Police unearth massive online shopping scam worth Rs 25 crore

Aug 19, 2021

New Delhi, Aug 19, (ANI) : Delhi Police’s CyPAD unit (Cyber Prevention Awareness & Detection Centre) has busted a search engine optimisation (SEO) scam that pushed multiple bogus e-commerce websites that duped thousands of people. Five accused, including mastermind Vijay Arora has been arrested. Accused had created 60 bogus shopping websites for electronic goods and clothing. These new and sham websites were pushed online through aggressive digital marketing using Search Engine Optimisation techniques. People looking for online shopping of electronic gadgets and apparels through online search were directed to these bogus sites, and were asked to pay upfront using the bait of highly discounted prices. The victims, who paid online for the products, were never sent the objects they had bought. If the victims repeatedly pressed for refund, highly inferior quality products were sent to deceive them. More than 10,000 people were cheated to the tune of Rs. 25 crores in the last three years. On receipt of the complaints, the alleged website was scanned and a web-search regarding more complaints against the website was conducted. Since the scam was being run at a massive scale, a dedicated police team was formed immediately and technical investigation was started. Complete analysis of the mobile numbers was done, the money trail was established, assistance was taken from the labs of CyPAD and the location of the accused was zeroed in. A raid was conducted by the team at the location of the main accused Vijay Arora and incriminating material was also recovered from his office, including inferior quality products. Subsequently, his operations managers and campaign manager involved in Search Engine Optimisation to push the fraudulent websites online were also arrested.