Jaipur, October 27 (Udaipur Kiran): The Jhalawar Police has successfully dismantled a major inter-state cybercrime syndicate operating under Operation Shutdown. The gang had infiltrated multiple central and state government portals, including PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, Jan Aadhaar, Social Security Pension (RajSSP), and the Disaster Management Information System (DMIS), defrauding the public exchequer of several crores of rupees.
The operation, launched on October 22, initially led to the arrest of 30 accused, and subsequent investigations have brought even larger revelations. So far, ₹1 crore across 11,000 suspicious bank accounts has been frozen, and six key accused have been arrested, with two government employees detained from Delhi, Punjab, Jaipur, Bharatpur, Dausa, and Jodhpur.
Key Arrests and Roles
Among those arrested is Mohammad Laiq, a resident of Kishanpole Bazaar, Jaipur, who worked as an operator at the State Nodal Office of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi. He misused his official credentials to create unauthorized login IDs, bypass OTPs, and activate ineligible accounts overnight.
Other key accused include:
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Subhash (Delhi): Provided inactive beneficiary data from Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
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Mohammad Shahid Khan (Bharatpur): Former contractual employee of a Land Development Bank who collaborated with Laiq in fake land seeding.
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Rohit Kumar and Sandeep Sharma (Jalandhar, Punjab): Designed and maintained clone websites of PM Kisan and other schemes.
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Sunant Sharma: Identified as the main handler of the gang.
Detained suspects include Ramesh Chand, an employee at Phalodi Collectorate, and Bhagchand from Lotwada, Dausa, both accused of mass illegal account activations and beneficiary linkages.
Massive Seizures
During the raids, the police seized ₹53 lakh in cash, a note counting machine, thousands of chequebooks, passbooks, and ATM cards, 35 laptops, 70 mobile phones, and digital evidence linked to around 11,000 suspicious bank accounts. Luxury cars, motorcycles, and tractors used in the crime were also confiscated.
Recovered data includes login IDs and passwords of over 1,500 SSO accounts, spanning officials from Collector to Patwari levels, HTML codes of the PM Kisan portal, and highly sensitive beneficiary records.
Method of Cyber Fraud
The gang collected data of inactive or ineligible rural beneficiaries whose registrations had lapsed due to incomplete land seeding or KYC. Using the nodal operator’s credentials, fake district-level IDs were created at night, allowing the team to bypass OTPs and reactivate accounts illegally.
They later disabled these unauthorized IDs before office hours to erase digital traces.
Similarly, through the DMIS portal, they exploited AePS loopholes to divert compensation funds meant for farmers to their own or fake accounts.
Breach in Jan Aadhaar and Pension Systems
Forensic analysis of seized devices revealed custom cyber tools used to bypass verification steps on the Jan Aadhaar portal, unauthorized access to e-Mitra Plus software, and thousands of forged PPOs (Pension Payment Orders) with bank details. Suspicious records of over 17,000 beneficiaries were recovered from Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Sikar districts.
Operation and Support Teams
A 6-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed under SP Amit Kumar, with crucial support from SOG Jaipur, SOG Delhi, and police units in Punjab, Bharatpur, Dausa, and Jodhpur (East). The coordinated effort enabled the tracking and arrest of both technical experts and government insiders involved in the fraud.
Reward and Further Investigation
To aid the investigation, the Superintendent of Police, Jhalawar, had announced a ₹25,000 reward each for the arrest of five absconding accused. Among them, Bhagchand of Dausa has been arrested, while Kuldeep Dholi, Naresh Saini, Vikram Saini, and Raju Tanwar remain at large.
The SIT is now focusing on tracing illegally acquired assets and uncovering deeper breaches within government systems.
Bhupendra Singh Chundawat is a seasoned technology journalist with over 22 years of experience in the media industry. He specializes in covering the global technology landscape, with a deep focus on manufacturing trends and the geopolitical impact on tech companies. Currently serving as the Editor at Udaipur Kiran, his insights are shaped by decades of hands-on reporting and editorial leadership in the fast-evolving world of technology.