Man posing as cybersecurity council exec dupes tech firm director of over Rs 5 crore

Hyderabad: The central crime station (CCS) police of Hyderabad registered a cheating and impersonation case after a software company director alleged that he was duped of over Rs 5.5 crore by a man claiming to be a senior executive of the National Information and Cybersecurity Council (NICC), an entity later found to have no association with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

According to the complaint, D Nalini Kumar, 46, director of Tech Fair Technologies company in Ameenpur, said he was introduced to the accused, Prameel Arjun, through a friend. “I was told Arjun was South Regional Head of NICC and he was looking for institutional partners for cybersecurity training programmes,” the complainant said.

During the initial meeting in Jan 2024, Arjun presented NICC as a premier cybersecurity body operating under a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of MeitY and showed brochures and other materials claiming recognition from prominent dignitaries and partnerships with organisations such as DRDO, Delhi Police and SBI. The complainant said he was persuaded by certain media reports and an official-looking website.

According to the complainant, the accused offered a cybersecurity training programme for which students would pay a subscription fee and receive a govt stipend after completion of six months of training. The complainant alleged that Prameel Arjun induced him to pay Rs 1 crore as a fee towards recognising his company as a Centre of Excellence for training. “He promised 2,000 login credentials for training at Rs 5,000 per student and advised me to charge Rs 15,000 per student. He also allegedly assured a Rs 2 crore govt grant to set up labs,” the complainant alleged.

As per Prameel’s advice, Kumar claimed to have spent about Rs 3 crore to set up offices in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, but the promised training, credentials and grants never materialised. The complainant said he realised the fraud after realising that NICC’s office did not exist at its addresses in Delhi, and an RTI reply from MeitY stated that NICC was not associated with the ministry.

Alleging that he suffered a loss of over Rs 5.5 crore due to the fraud, Kumar approached CCS police on May 21 with a complaint against Prameel. Based on the complaint, a case was booked against Prameel Arjun under Sections 318(4) (cheating), 319(2) (cheating by personation), 336(3) (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 340(2) (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the BNS.