Fake Aadhaar, Facebook account: how gang posed as cops, targeted their contacts

On September 15, a senior IPS officer in Karnataka, P Harishekharan, filed a complaint with a CID cyber crime police station in Bengaluru, saying somebody had created a fake Facebook profile with his name and photographs and was seeking funds from his friends.

A day later, CID Deputy Superintendent of Police M H Nagthe lodged a similar complaint.

On October 5, another DSP in the CID, Prakash Rathod, lodged a complaint saying a friend of his friend had donated money after being approached by a fake Facebook account in the DSP’s name.

Investigations in over a dozen similar complaints made by police officers in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana have led the Karnataka CID cyber unit to an organised cybercrime network operating mostly from Bharatpur and other parts of Rajasthan.