Cyber crime: Four arrested for ‘defrauding’ Vadodara man of Rs 13.70 lakh

The police have also recovered Rs 5.5 lakh in cash, 24 cheque books, five laptops, 24 mobile phones, several debit cards and stamps of 11 companies from the possession of the accused.

The accused carried out the investment fraud by enticing victims and misleading them to download fake applications, said the police.

According to the police, the modus operandi of the accused persons involved placing click-bait advertisements on social media platforms.

Once a victim showed interest, he would be added to a Whatsapp Group purportedly sharing stock market tips and be encouraged to download a phoney app to “transfer money” for investment, said the police.

After gaining the trust of the victim by showing profits for the initial amount and even returning some money as “profits”, the accused trapped them into transferring bigger amounts as part of the fraud, according to the police.

MM Rajput, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Vadodara Cyber Crime Police station said, “They lured the victims by showing them big profits in the screenshots.

After they initially returned Rs 2 lakh to the victim as ‘profit’, he started trusting them and handed over Rs 15 lakh under the pretext of buying IPOs through multiple bank accounts.”

“We used human intelligence and followed the money trail. Investigations showed that the accounts involved in the transaction were operated from Delhi.

A team of officials from Vadodara Cyber Crime Police Station went to Delhi, conducted a recce and arrested the four accused,” said the ACP.

According to police, a total of 76 cyber crime cases are lodged against the bank accounts used by the accused, across the country.

“Although the accused used seven banking accounts in the present case, we have found that about 100 suspected accounts belonging to the accused have been used to transact Rs 30 crore…” Rajput said.