2 min readJun 25, 2026 09:31 PM IST
The Mumbai crime branch this week arrested six persons from Jharkhand and Delhi who allegedly are involved in 93 cases of ‘apk fraud’ in the city with their details featuring in over 3,000 cases across India.
Fraudsters send victims fake receipts such as gas bill or traffic challan embedded with an apk file which once clicked grants them access to the victim’s bank.
DCP (cyber) Bajrang Bansode said that the main accused, Arif Ansari (28) from Jharkhand, was involved in similar cyber crimes in the past. He approached Delhi resident Sajid Ali (29) who has done his Masters in Computer Applications and asked him to prepare an apk file. they could use for cyber crimes.
Senior inspector Survarna Shinde said that Ali learnt how to create an apk file on YouTube and misused it to commit fraud. The other accused then gathered data of people and started sending these files to thousands of people.
Bansode said that they had hired two men — Mohan Mahto (23) and Sunil Soren (25) — whose job was to call up people who respond to these documents and scare them into clicking on these documents and filling it.
Once the victim clicked the file, it would give the fraudsters access to their mobile and OTPs, which they would use to dupe people.
Shinde said that they were investigating a case where a man had lost Rs 2.5 lakh after clicking on a fake mahanagar gas bill, which turned out to be a fraud.
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Bansode said that their details had cropped up in over 3,000 cyber crime complaints registered on the national cyber crime helpline portal.
