Mumbai, Oct 29 An interstate cyber-fraud gang was busted with the arrest of six persons, unravelling a nationwide racket linked to 255 complaints involving fraud of around Rs 72 crore, a Mumbai police official said on Thursday.
The probe began after an accountant approached police claiming a man posing as the owner of the firm where he worked got him to transfer Rs 10 lakh fraudulently, the official said.
“The accountant had received a WhatsApp message on July 30 from an unknown number featuring the company owner’s photograph as the profile picture. On his complaint, a case was registered at Mulund police station under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Information Technology Act,” he said.
Technical analysis of bank transactions and mobile numbers revealed that Rs 5.50 lakh of the defrauded amount was transferred to a bank account in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, and subsequently withdrawn via cheque, he said.
A police team nabbed three suspects in Meerut, while subsequent interrogation led to the arrest of three more persons from Ghaziabad in UP, Vadodara in Gujarat and and Kandivali in north Mumbai. A sum of Rs 5.50 lakh and five mobile phones were seized, he added.
“Further technical analysis of 11 bank accounts discovered on the mobile phone of one suspect revealed links to 182 cyber-fraud complaints across 21 states. Another suspect’s phone yielded details of 49 bank accounts connected to 73 cybercrime complaints nationwide, taking the total count to 255 cases with an estimated total defrauded amount of Rs 72 crore,” he said.
The gang members used Telegram groups to buy and sell bank accounts and SIM cards, the official said.
“They installed malicious APK files on the mobile devices of account holders to control and receive fraudulent funds, routing the money through multiple accounts before withdrawing cash or converting the proceeds into USDT cryptocurrency,” he added.
(PTI News)
