Kolkata: Kolkata Police arrested the kingpin of a cyber fraud gang, Huzaifa Shabbir Darbar, from Pune for allegedly running a fake hotel booking racket that duped 83 Kolkata residents of Rs 13,60,803 by creating fake websites of reputed hotels, for the last seven months.
Police said the accused and his associates used fabricated documents to make the fraud appear genuine. One of the victims, Debajyoti Mallick (36), a resident of Purba Barisha attempted to book a room at "Puri Hotel" through a fake website on May 5, 2025. He was asked to pay Re 1 for ‘verification', which was credited to an account in the name of Anuj Kumar Solanki, who posed as the hotel's front desk manager.
Police said the victim was then told that the UPI transactions had failed and was directed to make payments through digital wallets in the name of Ashis Jena, who posed as the hotel's senior manager. Cops said the fraudsters shared photographs of hotel rooms to build trust. Mallick transferred Rs 4,480 on May 5, but did not receive any booking confirmation, and subsequent calls went unanswered.
"During the probe, police found the fake domain was hosted on GoDaddy.com, LLC, and an email ID was obtained. Prompt responses from both firms led to the arrest," said Joint CP (crime & traffic) Rupesh Kumar.