Delhi: Four arrested for cyber fraud; Rs 60 lakh unearthed

New Delhi [India], January 27 : Four men have been arrested for allegedly committing cyber fraud through a social media application in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh (UP), police said on Saturday.
The accused were identified as Harish Kumar, Vipul Sharma, Shiv Pratap and Om Prakash, alias Monu.
Delhi police said that a money trail of Rs 60 lakh and four mobile phones had been unearthed in the fraud.
Their arrest came after a complaint was received by police on August 13, 2023, in which the complainant, Ashish Kumar Tomer, a resident of west Delhi, alleged that on August 9, 2023, he was approached by some fraudster, claiming to be Anitai from Career Builder Ltd., India.
She offered him to earn money by rating restaurants on Google. The complainant accepted the offer.
"On August 11, the complainant was added to a Telegram group and he was assigned tasks to rate restaurants on Google Maps.
After the completion of tasks, he was paid some money and then asked to invest Rs 1,000 to get Rs 1,300. An account was made for him in the name of the Sony Corp. platform and he was asked to invest for business," said police.
Tomar was also added by @david6687 to another group, Task Force G305388.
"Thereafter, he was asked to pay a huge amount for an investment with assured returns. The complainant got trapped and transferred Rs 23,260 for good returns. When he tried to deny them and asked to return his money, the fraudsters told him that he wouldn't be able to withdraw without more investment," added the police.
During the investigation, the details of the beneficiary accounts were obtained and it was revealed that the cheated amount was credited to ICICI Bank of Harish.
"Harish was arrested and, on interrogation, disclosed that he came in contact with Vipul and sold his account for a five per cent commission basis. During further investigation, the accused, Vipul, was also arrested. He disclosed that he had joined many telegram groups for providing bank accounts to fraudsters," said the police.
Vipul further disclosed that he came in contact with Om Prakash through Telegram, who was an active member of telegram groups where bank accounts were being sold and purchased.
"Subsequently, another accused, Shiv, and Om Prakash were also arrested in the said case. Om Prakash told police that he came into contact with two persons, identified as Vipul Sharma and Amit," said the police.
The police said that Amit is running a big syndicate that provides fraud accounts and has links with Chinese nationals who are operating the telegram fraud syndicate from abroad.