New Delhi: Delhi Police has busted a fake website of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) under the name “Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Yojna” and arrested the mastermind for cheating several people on the pretext of providing them government loans, officials said Sunday.
In a joint operation by Delhi and West Bengal Police, Sudipta Chatterjee, the 43-year-old mastermind of the racket, was arrested Saturday from Howrah, where the network had its base.
“The fake website was created with the aim of cheating people of their money on the pretext of providing them loans for various projects and schemes,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Ravindra Yadav.
Twenty mobile phones, hard disks, internet dongles, cheques related to 43 bank accounts, fake project reports, some incriminating documents along with 16 rubber stamps of government offices were recovered from his possession.
Details of the server were obtained on the basis of the fake URL — www.pmay-gov.in.
Chatterjee was produced in a court in Bengal and was brought on transit remand to Delhi.
According to the police official, Chatterjee created the fake website, projected it as a government one and hosted it on a server based in the US.