Mumbai, Jul 10 (PTI) Six persons of a gang were arrested for allegedly cheating a company of Rs 1.93 crore after misusing the identity of its director in Whatsapp chats with a staffer, a police official said on Thursday.
After the money was transferred, it was withdrawn by a member of this syndicate in China, who then converted it into cryptocurrency, the official informed.
“Our probe has found the bank accounts used in the current case were previously used in 11 cases of cyber fraud. Further investigations in the scale of the racket are underway,” the official said.
“Between April 12 and 15, the secretary of a prominent firm received a WhatsApp message from an unidentified number. The sender claimed he was the director of the company. The secretary responded since the Whatsapp display picture was that of the company director. On the sender’s directions, the secretary transferred Rs 1.93 crore of the company to an account provided by the former,” he said.
It was later that the company secretary was told that the director had not asked for any money to be transferred, following which they approached West Region cyber police station.
“As part of the probe, the bank accounts that were used to deposit money and the route of the transferred amount were examined. It was found that the beneficiary account holders were in Mumbai along with other members of the syndicate. The accused had opened accounts using bogus documents,” the official said.
The accused were given cheque books, cards along with passwords etc for internet banking, the official said.
The probe led to the arrests of Shubham Kunjir (28), a resident of Pune, Akshay Shelke (28) of Nashik, Ujjawal Ram Awadhesh Kumar Singh (29) from Andheri; Shubhamkumar Singh Pardesi alias Rajput (28) of Nashik, Goa’s Aditya Shinde (31) and Aryan Mishra alias Sinchan Nehra (33) from Lucknow, the official said.
“Kunjir’s bank account was used to transfer money from the company’s account. Aryan Mishra was in contact with the Chinese members of the syndicate. He used to give them bank details and credentials of the particular bank accounts, which helped the Chinese members withdraw or transfer money or convert it into cryptocurrency,” he said.
The official said 28 mobile phones, one laptop, 16 SIM cards of various companies, 13 cheque books, eight debit cards as well as one pistol and four live cartridges have been recovered. PTI DC BNM
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