Four people have been arrested from West Bengal, Gujarat, and Rajasthan for cheating people across India of crores of rupees, the Delhi Police said on Sunday. The accused provided an international cybercrime syndicate with Indian bank accounts to transfer stolen money which were further transferred abroad in the form of bitcoins, police said.
A bank account belonging to one of the accused, identified as 23-year-old Aditya Sonkar, had transactions totalling ₹4.28 crore in the past seven months, while the account holder is a goldsmith by profession at a jewellery shop in Kolkata where he earns only ₹20,000-25,000 per month, said police.
The complaint in this case was registered by a 45-year-old deputy general manager of an international corporate firm living in Vasant Vihar in south Delhi, who was duped of ₹42 lakh on the pretext of online stock investments. Based on the complaint, a first information report was registered at the cyber police station of southwest district in March this year.
“The other accused, identified as Chetan Singh Ranawat, 33, from Chittorgarh in Rajasthan, Nikunj Ashwinbhai Makvana, 29, from Amreli in Gujarat, and Sumit Shaw, 23, also from Kolkata, are daily wagers with no significant financial background. The stolen amount of ₹42 lakh was transferred into 11 bank accounts. At least 72 complaints lodged on the national cybercrime reporting portal (NCRP) were found linked with the accounts,” said a senior police officer.
Deputy commissioner of police (southwest) Surendra Choudhary said that the complainant on January 10 saw an investment advertisement on Instagram and joined a WhatsApp group. The complainant was tricked into investing ₹42 lakh in the online investment scheme, but when he tried to withdraw his money, the scammers refused after which the complainant approached the police.
“The team led by inspector Vikas Buldak carried out bipolar strategies in the investigation — officers investigated the money trails and launched a probe on the available technical leads. Analysis of one of the accused’s bank accounts led to the arrest of Makvana from Gujarat whose credentials were used to open a current bank account in the name of a private firm. Makvana told investigators that he had given his account details to Chetan Singh Ranawat, who was also arrested from Chittorgarh in Rajasthan,” said the DCP.
Further investigation revealed that another credit account was opened in the name of Sonkar who was arrested from Kolkata. Sonkar said that he had given the account details to his associate Shaw, who was also arrested from Kolkata, police said. Shaw revealed that he was connected to a cyber scamster in Kolkata, who is on the run and is part of an international cybercrime syndicate, police said.
“The account handlers manage all the bank accounts and provide them to a group based abroad. They communicate with them on Telegram and set up mobile phones with applications to forward OTPs to siphon off money stolen from their targets. Five mobile phones used in the crime have been seized from the arrested accused,” added Choudhary.
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