Ahmedabad: Investigations into a Rs 3.8 crore ‘digital arrest’ fraud case filed with CID Cyber Crime Cell had led sleuths from Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCoE), Gandhinagar, to arrest three persons who allegedly routed proceeds from the fraud, possibly to other members of their gang.Gopalram Punaram and Nekdeen Kathat were arrested from Beawar in Rajasthan while the third accused, Deepak Kundu, was nabbed from Jind, Haryana.According to investigators, Punaram and Kathat allegedly opened a bank account in the name of a partnership firm. Around Rs 70 lakh from the digital arrest fraud was allegedly deposited into this account. The duo then transferred the money to other accounts with the intention of earning a commission. Kundu, meanwhile, received cyberfraud proceeds through bank accounts, converted the money into USDT and transferred it to other gang members.During examination of the trio’s phones, police recovered details of seven bank accounts. A check against the cybercrime reporting portal showed that these accounts were allegedly linked to more than 29 complaints registered across the country involving around Rs 83.1 lakh.The complaints include cases from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand and Odisha. The accused’s accounts were allegedly used in digital arrest, investment, UPI-related and trading fraud cases.The investigation also uncovered a new method allegedly used by the absconding masterminds to route the Rs 3.8 crore. Police found that the gang had targeted people looking for online loans by offering them loans through a purported finance company.The loan seekers were allegedly asked to submit documents and download an app. They were then given an ID and password to activate the application. This, police suspect, was to gain access into the applicants’ phones and use their bank accounts to receive proceeds of the digital arrest fraud. The money was allegedly moved through bulk transactions into other accounts, making the loan seekers unsuspecting links in the money trail.Police are on the trail of the gang’s absconding members and identifying other bank accounts and beneficiaries linked to the frauds.
