DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

Punjab Police on Thursday said its cybercrime division has unearthed a minimum support price (MSP) payment fraud with the arrest of four people involved in manipulating the 'Anaaj Kharid Portal' to divert crop payments from farmers to their own bank accounts. Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Cybercrime Division, V Neeraja identified the accused as Manish, Jasvir Singh, Angrej Singh, and Balwinder Singh.

Police also seized digital devices and routers used by them to commit the fraud.

Neeraja said the accused replaced the farmers mobile numbers with their own and then used them to update their bank account information.

To avoid detection, the accused would restore the original details immediately after the payment was processed, she said, adding, a state wide operation is being conducted to nab the other people involved in the scam.

The fraud came to light when food and civil supplies department found that some farmers had not received the payment for their crops during the 2024 paddy season and approached police.

A verification revealed that the payment of these farmers had been credited to various bank accounts belonging to different people.

The ADGP said police detected the fraud when they analysed the bank data during preliminary enquiry.

During the investigation, it was also revealed that a mobile number and a mobile device was purchased from Mohali on fake identity, which was used to obtain OTPs for altering the bank accounts of farmers on the portal.

The gang ran its operation from remote areas of Muktsar, she said.

Neeraja said three teams from the cybercrime division headed by Inspectors Jujhar Singh and Deepak Bhatia used multiple OSINT (open source intelligence) techniques to establish the whereabouts of the accused, which led to the arrest of the four men from Moga and Muktsar.

They are being questioned for the involvement of more people, she said.

The ADGP did not rule out the connivance of officials of the Mandi Board or food supply department and commission agents, who might have shared sensible information and technical glitches of the Anaaj Kharid portal with the masterminds of the scam.

(editor@dailyworld.in)