Kolkata: The West Bengal CID has arrested two top officials of a beverage-manufacturing company for their alleged involvement with a Pakistan-based racket that conned people with fake lottery schemes, a senior officer of the agency said here, Sunday.
Acting on a suo motu case registered at Egra police station in East Midnapore district, January 13, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) found out that the racket had been duping people in the state as well other parts of the country, the official pointed out.
Two officials of Pran Beverages (India) Private Ltd – director Rajesh Ghosh and sales administration manager Bidhan Kirtaniya – were arrested Saturday night after they were found to have received money from the racket. The duo was produced at Contai court, which remanded them to police custody, the officer informed. They have been booked under several relevant sections of the IPC and section 66 (D) of the IT Act.
Sharing the modus operandi of the racket, the CID officer said that the money collected from people were sent to Pakistan through hawala channels.
“The racketeers would call up people via phone or Whatsapp from numbers starting with +92 or 0092 to tell them that they won a huge amount of money in lottery, which would be transferred to them on payment of processing fees. Once the fees were deposited in the bank account, it was withdrawn by agents here in India. They then sent the money to Pakistan after routing it through Dubai,” the officer explained.
As of now, the department is trying to find out more about the operations of the racket.
PTI