The Bengaluru City police said Wednesday that they arrested a Bihar man on November 6 in connection with a cybercrime case in which actress Priyanka Upendra allegedly lost Rs 1.65 lakh through a fake delivery scam in September.
Akshay M Hakke, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central), said the accused, identified as Vikas Kumar, a native of Nalanda in Bihar, was arrested from Sonia Nagar in Delhi, and subsequently remanded to judicial custody after five days in police custody.
The police camped in Delhi and Bihar for nearly two weeks to trace Vikas, said an officer in the investigation team.
“Vikas, a BCom graduate, is said to have been part of the other cybercrimes that have taken place in the country. We are investigating whether he is part of a nexus. As per our estimates, at least 150 youths are engaged in cybercrime in Nalanda alone,” the officer added.
The police are yet to reveal details about how they managed to nab Vikas.
According to Priyanka, wife of Kannada actor Upendra, the actress allegedly received a call at 10 am on September 15 from a person claiming to represent a Dubai-based online platform where she had placed an order. The caller, posing as an executive, claimed they couldn’t locate her address for package delivery. Her phone was allegedly hacked after she followed the instructions of the caller and typed a code, the police said. She then forwarded the link to Upendra’s phone, and his phone also soon stopped working when he clicked on the link, the police said.
The cyber fraudsters allegedly siphoned off money by sending fraudulent WhatsApp messages from Priyanka’s account to her contacts, requesting urgent financial assistance. After some of her contacts sent money, she filed a complaint on September 15 at the Sadashivanagar police station, alleging that she lost Rs 1.65 lakh.
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“Cyber fraudsters make use of thousands of SIM cards to con the public. We don’t get the local police support if the accused happens to be in any north Indian state,” an officer said.