Report by Amarnath Parida; Jagatsinghpur: A big fake SMSes lottery racket, collecting lakhs of rupees by duping thousands of people has unearthed by Banrapal police under Angul district with the arrest of one accused person of Ghosaghar village under Erasama police limit. The main accused persons who have been involved in this racket has not yet nabbed so police has sought the intervention crime branch to conduct an inquiry about this matter.

Different fake agencies have been passed SMSes, e-mail lottery to thousands of people on their respective cell phone daily. After receiving it, people give their option to obtain the allocated amount through this lottery. People have duped through fake SMSes and spend lakhs of rupees to get huge amount of money but lastly they have been cheated.

One contractor Padmalochan Das, 38 hailing from Balaramprasad under Banarpal police limit of Angul district who received the SMS lucky lottery though his cell phone 9938900769 fall prey to the trap. After receiving SMS, he gave option to get huge amount so one unidentified person contacted over cell phone informing victim that he has won lottery Rs 10 lakh . To claim it, he asked to deposit a sum Rs 2.70 lakh as service charge, refreshment charges, processing and other expenditure of company. Being duped, as had deposited Rs 1.30 lakh and Rs 1.40 lakh in last February and March.

After depositing this amount, Das claimed to give their lottery amount of Rs 10 lakh but accused persons said that he had won a million-dollar lottery including luxury car. Among all India lotteries, total 235 persons have won said huge prize lottery so he is in five among all participants.

When victim Das replied, he is trapped. The accused again had sent e-mails and SMS telling him that he should need to complete legal formalities to get the prize money for which they would need to deposit certain amount in the bank. Even accused persons supplied the bank account number of State Bank of India, ICICI banks of Odisha, New Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and other states.  As per their suggestions, victim had deposited Rs 18.50 lakhs in different banks to obtain a million-dollar lottery including luxury car.

Meanwhile, Das suspected the activities of accused persons and verified the account number 31251692010 of SBI to know his amount is being deposited or not. He had deposited RS 25,000 on said bank in last week and found that same deposit amount has been withdrawn just after deposit. He found that this SBI account number is under Balikuda branch of Jagatsinghpur district and depositor name is Sujit Behera hailing from Ghosaghar under Erasama police limit.

Later, victim Das lodged an FIR at Banarpal police station in which police registered a case in this connection. On a raid, Banarpal police with the cooperation of Erasama police raided the house of Behera and arrested the depositor Mr Behera from his village on last Wednesday.

On the other hand, Behera has informed to the police ‘he is ignorant about this matter. His cuisine brother Prasant Sahu of same village took my SBI account number and ATM card to give this number to another person for receiving money and to withdraw the same amount by ATM. After this incidence, accused person Sahu is absconding from the village.

IIC of Banarpal police limit Mr Rasmiranjan Mishra said ‘after being duped victim Das had deposited Rs 18.50 lakh in 30 bank accounts of SBI and 10 ICICI branches of all over the country. Police has arrested and forwarded one depositor of Balikuda SBI for interrogation. Other accused Sahu is absconding so we have sought the intervention Erasama police to nab him to unearth the interstate racket’. He added.

On the other hand, IIC of Erasama police station said effort is going on to nab the accused who has involved in this racket. Accused Sahu is absconding from the village’. He added.