Cyber police arrest three in 2cr share-trading fraud

Pune: The Pimpri Chinchwad cyber police arrested three people, including a real estate agent, in connection with an online share-trading fraud case in which a director of a labour supply company lost Rs 2crore between Feb and March.In Feb, the victim was added to two groups on a mobile messaging app by cybercrooks. They assured him 15% returns on his investments in the stock market if the latter invested funds through them.They shared a link with the victim to download an app to monitor his profit. Under the pretext of purchasing stocks and IPOs, the crooks made the victim transfer money to different bank accounts. Within a month, the victim transferred Rs 2 crore to 15 different bank accounts. He did not suspect anything as the app was showing that he earned a profit of Rs 3 crore.The victim realised that he was being duped when he was not able to withdraw his money. A Pimpri Chinchwad cyber police team led by senior police inspector Ravikiran Nale investigated the case. After receiving the complaint, the police had succeeded in holding Rs 62 lakh of the victim's money.The investigation revealed that some of the money was transferred to a bank account in the name of an industry in New Mumbai. The team led by assistant police inspector Pravin Swami traced the account holder, Sushil Juvatkar (42) of Nerul in New Mumbai and took him into custody."Juvatkar, who works as a real estate agent, revealed that he had opened the bank account in a public sector bank and used it as a mule bank account for his handlers based out of the country," an officer from the Pimpri Chinchwad cyber police said.He said Juvatkar also revealed the names of his accomplices, Pankaj Kapur (38) and Nischal Bareyali (27), both currently residing at Nerul."Our team arrested them as well. We found that they had worked at the call centres in Thailand and Myanmar, which were operating for committing cybercrimes," he said.The officer said Juvatkar, Kapur and Bareyali were operating the mule bank account opened in the name of a company."Transactions worth Rs 2 crore were made from this bank account. We have also recovered six cellphones, three passports, two laptops, three point-of-sale (POS) machines, 24 bank account opening kits and five debit cards from them," the officer said.He said during the investigation, the trio revealed they were preparing to start a knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) unit soon. "We suspect that they might have planned to use that KPO to target victims. We are questioning them," he said.