After more than a year of sustained probe that took them to multiple north Indian States, a special investigation team (SIT) probing a four-year-old online fraud case picked up the key accused from Maharashtra on Saturday night.
Muhammed Shakkeel Diwan, 28, of Chhindwara district in Madhya Pradesh had been at large in a case registered by the Muvattupuzha police in 2015. According to the police, he fraudulently withdrew ₹5.15 lakh from the bank account of one Basil.
For the SIT led by Muvattupuzha Inspector C. Jayakumar, the starting point of the probe was the WhatsApp profile picture of the suspect whom they initially tracked down to a mobile service network provider in Madhya Pradesh with the help of the cyber cell.
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“He was an employee there and one of his co-workers identified him. He was found to have hacked into the account of the company’s premium clientele. Further investigation revealed that the accused had undergone imprisonment in Rajasthan for a similar fraud,” said P.K. Salim, Assistant Sub Inspector and a member of the SIT.
The team then verified the Facebook account of the accused and tracked him down to Maharashtra on finding the pictures of a hotel there. Realising that the accused was employed in that hotel, SIT members booked a room there and picked him up from the staff quarters.
“His account was found to be credited with thousands, and even lakhs on a daily basis through online fraud. Rather than stacking up the money in his account he transferred the money, after withdrawing the maximum permissible amount by ATM, to other accounts to avoid detection,” said Mr. Salim.
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The arrest of the accused was recorded on Sunday. The SIT now plans to secure his custody for further interrogation as it suspects the involvement of more people, including one Ashish Shinde who had served prison term with him, behind similar frauds taken place across the country.