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Journalism of Courage
From a plush condominium inside an exclusive gated community in the National Capital Region to a small three-room house in a Haryana village and then through a rented room on a terrace in the suburbs of Hyderabad to 15 more states. All it took was just a few minutes for a sum of nearly Rs 6 crore to be stolen through this circuitous route to 28 bank accounts across the country, and 141 more later, before vanishing into thin air.
And this is just one of the 1.23 lakh cases involving Rs 1,935 crore that were reported in 2024, almost thrice the numbers logged in 2022, of digital arrests — where scamsters scare and ensnare victims through fake interrogations on video calls before cleaning out their bank accounts.
Tracking the trends being reported by state police forces and cyber fraud units all over the country, The Indian Express zeroed in on an illustrative case in Gurugram, involving a 44-year-old advertising executive.
It tracked the money trail through an investigation of police records, interrogation statements along with field visits to police stations across three states, interviewing dozens of traumatised victims, hapless “mules” in the chain and key bank officials.
It found a befuddling web of transactions involving low-income account-holders who were used to move sums ranging from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 81 lakh within the blink of an eye; those whose job was to track this flow either looking the other way or complicit in the crime; and, banks scurrying for cover while pointing fingers at each other.
“Everyone, including investigators, ask me: how could an educated woman like you make such a mistake? Every victim is burdened with more shame and guilt so we go silent on what happened. That suits the criminals perfectly,” said the Gurugram victim, who is a single parent.
Following the incident, she knocked on several doors to recover her “life savings”, even writing to the Prime Minister’s Office. Her case is now being probed by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Gurugram police, set up in April this year. So far, the SIT has arrested three persons in Hyderabad, including a co-operative bank director and two of his “associates”, and recovered about Rs 58 lakh.
The SIT has also been alerted by Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), the Union Home Ministry’s cyber fraud unit, that 11 “mule” accounts related to its probe in Hyderabad are at the heart of 181 other such complaints. According to investigators, a total of Rs 21 crore passed through these 11 accounts within three months. And, with fresh leads pointing to some of these funds being used to purchase cryptocurrency, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been roped in as well.
The Indian Express pieced together the multiple strands that investigators say have made the Gurugram case a typical digital arrest scam (see chart).
First stop: Jhajjar
September 4-5, 2024: Police records show the victim visited two branches of HDFC Bank near her condominium and, as instructed by the scamsters, transferred Rs 5.85 crore, mainly in tranches of Rs 99 lakh each, through RTGS to the ICICI Bank account of an individual identified as Piyush from Subana village in Haryana’s Jhajjar district.
September 4, 2024: Piyush’s current account statement shows the receipt of Rs 2.88 crore from the victim’s account between 2.45 pm and 2.47 pm. From 2.52 pm, the outflow began to 28 accounts in 10 other banks. Within an hour and 28 minutes, the entire lot is splintered and moved out.
September 5, 2024: Piyush’s account received Rs 2.97 crore from the victim by 2.50 pm. Within 35 seconds, the high-volume deposits start getting splintered. In just 29 minutes, the victim’s money was “cashed out’’, leaving just Rs 2,844 in the account of Piyush, a 26-year-old job-seeker.
The Indian Express tracked down Piyush’s home in Subana. His father, 60-year old Ranbir, an ex-serviceman, said Piyush had been arrested, held in Bhondsi jail for six months before being granted bail on April 8 this year, and is now with a relative at another location.
Ranbir and his wife Shakuntala, who broke down while speaking about her son, claimed he had been “pressured” into opening the account by “friends”. “He didn’t get anything in return. It was only when the bank manager visited our house (on September 5, 2024) that we got to know some scam money had been deposited,” Ranbir said.
Second stop: Hyderabad
Police records show that most of the money from Piyush’s account went to banks in Andhra and Telangana, including Rs 4.87 crore to 11 accounts in Sreenivasa Padmavathi Co-operative Urban Bank in Hyderabad’s Saroor Nagar — a nondescript branch with a staff of around ten people.
The SIT found that five of these 11 accounts had been opened at the behest of one of the bank’s directors, Venkateswaralu Samudrala. It also found that a majority of addresses listed in forms submitted to open these accounts were fictitious, except for three — held by a tailor, a carpenter and an autorickshaw driver, all of whom have been questioned by the SIT.
The Indian Express visited the bank and traced the three identified “mule” account-holders in the city’s suburbs: R Sharadha (35), a single mother of two girls, in the Amberpet area; N Ravinder (45) in the Reddy Basthi of Saidabad; and, G Shivaraju (24) who said he would speak only over the phone. Sharadha and Ravinder said they were persuaded to open the account by Samudrala.
Their accounts, which they claim they haven’t used, also tell another story.
Ravinder’s account features in 37 complaints registered with I4C, the highest after another account opened in the name of Sai Krishna Kandi, listed as a resident of Bhanu Nagar in Champapet. And, Sharadha’s account featured in eight complaints — both of them said they were unaware of this record.
The account in the name of Kandi, which figures in 46 I4C complaints, received the most money from Piyush in the Gurugram case: Rs 81.4 lakh. This account’s statement shows a deposit of Rs 5.24 crore in 11 months, with a balance of Rs 6,000 in February this year. But unlike Ravinder, the SIT found that the address listed in Kandi’s name was fictitious and he could not be traced.
Sharadha’s bank statement shows deposits totaling 1.07 crore in three months of which more than Rs 1.06 crore has been withdrawn by October 2024, leaving a balance of Rs 6,000. Of these deposits, Rs 41 lakh came in three tranches from the account of Piyush.
“I first met Samudrala on a bus, and he asked if I wanted a job. I was desperate and said yes. He then made me open the account. I never used the account or went to the bank. In February, the police informed me that Samudrala had committed fraud with my account. I took the police to his house in Hyderabad,” said Sharadha, who works on a sewing machine inside her rented room on a terrace.
The SIT also recorded the statement of Ravinder, the carpenter. Records show Rs 10 lakh was moved to his account from that of Piyush, and emptied out. “I met Samudrala at a tea shop near the bank and he offered me a permanent job. He said the bank account was part of the requirement. Later, the police told me I have to appear in court to give evidence. I am a carpenter who works all day to feed his family. I have done nothing wrong,” said Ravinder at his rented home where he lives with his wife and five-year old son.
Shivaraju, the autorickshaw driver, refused to meet even though his account features in 14 separate cyber complaints. Speaking over the phone, he said, “I opened the account on the request of my brother-in-law. I am busy everyday, riding my autorickshaw, and did not follow up with the bank. Then, the police arrived.”
In raids conducted on premises linked to Samudrala and two of his arrested associates in Hyderabad, K Veerabhadra Rao and J John Weslry who allegedly helped open two of the 11 accounts linked to the Gurugram case, the police recovered Rs 63 lakh in cash, which is likely to be added to the sum already recovered in the case.
Records show that Samudrala, who faces three FIRs for cryptocurrency fraud, told police he had earlier been arrested in Gujarat in a similar case and held in the Sabarmati Jail from September 2024 to January this year, and then till February in the Rajkot Central jail.
Dr Hitesh Yadav, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Gurugram (South), told The Indian Express, “The main accused whom we have nabbed from Hyderabad has a cyber crime history. We are going to nab the others behind this and other digital arrest cases. We are also going to hold the co-operative bank in Hyderabad accountable for opening mule accounts.”
