Indian Railways has busted a Rs 28.14 crore racket involving the cornering of railway tickets in bulk by travel agents in Mumbai and Rajkot through the use of illegal software. These tickets were then sold to travellers at a hefty premium to make a fast buck.
Six persons have been arrested in this case and 1,688 tickets valued at Rs. Rs 43.42 lakh have been seized. In the past, they had procured and sold tickets worth 28.14 cores earning huge commissions, according to a Railway Ministry statement issued today.
Acting on intelligence inputs, an RPF team succeeded in nabbing Mannan Vaghela, a Rajkot travel agent who was using illegal software COVID-19 to corner railway tickets in bulk.
Another person named Kanhaiya Giri (super Seller of illegal Softwares COVID-X, ANMSBACK, BLACK TIGER etc.) was arrested on July 17 from Mumbai on the basis of information provided by Vaghela.
During interrogation, Giri spilled the beans and revealed the names of other associates and Admin/Developer Abhishekh Sharma of Vapi, who was also arrested on July 20. Abhishekh Sharma confessed about having been the Admin of all these Illegal Softwares. On the basis of leads provided by the arrested accused persons, another three accused –Aman Kumar Sharma, Virendra Gupta and Abhishekh Tiwari were arrested from Mumbai, Valsad (Gujarat) and Sultanpur (UP) respectively. RPF is in search of a few more suspects involved in this case, the official statement said.
These accused persons were involved in development and sale of these illegal softwares using social media such as Telegram and Whatsapp along with providing fake Virtual Numbers and Fake user IDs of IRCTC. These accused had softwares to create fake IP addresses used to bypass the restriction imposed on the number of tickets that customers can buy per IP address. They sold disposable mobile numbers and disposable emails too which are used for OTP verification to create fake user IDs of IRCTC.
The inputs revealed by the accused are being examined threadbare by a team to plug the loopholes and take measures to stop such practice. This operation will continue in future, the official statement added.
