Ahmedabad, Oct 30 (IANS) The Ahmedabad City Cyber Crime Branch has arrested four men allegedly involved in supplying bank accounts to Dubai-based handlers, with investigators finding that more than 30 accounts recovered in the case were linked to over 80 cyber fraud complaints across 15 states involving transactions of more than Rs 50 crore.
The arrests followed an investigation into a case in which a complainant was allegedly cheated of Rs 67.92 lakh through two fake investment applications promising high returns from stock market trading.
The accused have been identified as Irfan Sheikh (41), Soheb Jojavarwala (37), Shehzad Ajmerwala (35) and Istiyaq Riyawala (38). Irfan and Soheb are residents of Vadodara, while Shehzad and Istiyaq are from the Jamalpur area of Ahmedabad.
According to the Cyber Crime Branch, the complainant was contacted through different WhatsApp numbers and persuaded to invest through an application named “JB X One”, purportedly operated by Julius Baer.
The callers claimed that investments through the application would not attract brokerage charges and sent a forged certificate bearing the name, logo, signature and stamp of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to establish that the company was registered with the market regulator.
The complainant subsequently invested Rs 47.14 lakh through the application.
In a second part of the alleged fraud, a person identifying herself as “Anju Garg” from ICICI Securities contacted the complainant and offered an opportunity to invest in block trading, promising returns of 5 to 20 per cent in a single day.
The complainant was persuaded to download another application, ID-QSB, and invest Rs 20.78 lakh. The platform subsequently displayed a balance of Rs 74,32,707.79 from purported share transactions.
However, when the complainant attempted to withdraw the money, the person posing as Anju Garg demanded payment of 20 per cent short-term capital gains tax and a four per cent health and education cess.
“The operators of both applications had displayed fabricated electronic information to make the investments appear genuine and had worked together as part of a pre-planned conspiracy to collect Rs 67.92 lakh from the complainant,” officials said.
Investigators used technical inputs and human intelligence to trace the alleged bank account suppliers in Ahmedabad and Vadodara.
According to the police, Irfan had provided his bank account to Soheb in exchange for a commission.
Soheb allegedly collected his own account, Irfan’s account and those of other individuals, supplying more than five bank accounts to Shehzad for a commission.
Shehzad allegedly procured accounts from Soheb, paid commissions for them and passed them on to Istiyaq.
He was also involved in identifying bank account holders and arranging accounts for Istiyaq.
Istiyaq allegedly played the principal role in the network by collecting bank accounts from Shehzad and forwarding them to associates in Dubai in return for commissions.
The Cyber Crime Branch recovered more than 30 bank account kits from Istiyaq.
Checks on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP) showed that the accounts were linked to more than 80 complaints registered in more than 15 states, involving transactions exceeding Rs 50 crore.
The police said further investigation is underway to establish the extent of the network and identify other people involved.
–IANS
mys/khz
