Mumbai: Dropout of universities from Jharkhand, Charku Mandal (27), has been arrested for creating a fake website Electric Distribution Company Maharashtra Limited (MSEDCL), and sending a cheat payment link to Dupe customers.
Some citizens are cheated after they receive fraud messages that warn them about immediate power cuts unless they make bill payments on the link to the website.
Toi, on January 21, has published an article ‘FIR submitted after the user gets an SMS to pay the power bill on a false link’.
Mandal was tracked within 15 days after he organized a fake MSEDC website on January 17.
“He managed to deceive many customers with RS 65,648 tones for two weeks hosting websites,” said DCP (Mumbai Cyber) Rashmi Karandikar, who said they took awareness of this issue after the energy minister Nitin Raut took the problem.
“Mandal managed to get a mobile phone number based on Maharashtra, to whom he fired a bulk message along with the payment link,” Karandikar said.
Mandal is tracked to Darbe village in Jharkhand with technical support assistance.
Police said the initial complaints came from Pune and Nagpur, but there were consumers in other parts of the country also received these messages.
Minister of Raut says that all consumer forces must make online payments only on the official website or MSEDCL application.
Most consumers have paid their bills and receive fraud and text calls regardless of it.
“They immediately submitted complaints with Suburban MSEDCL and the main office on fake callers, suspecting online fraud,” police said.
Manah lives for people who help mandal to make a fake website.