The Ernakulam Rural cyber police arrested two more persons in a case in which a 63-year-old Aluva resident was cheated of ₹1.15 crore after being threatened of arrest warrants against him by the Supreme Court.
The arrested are Abdul Khadar, 59, of Kozhikode and Ameer, 29, of Kunnamangalam. The police had previously arrested Ashwin, 25, and Athul, 33, of Kozhikode, thus taking the total number of arrests to four. A team constituted by District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural) Vaibhav Saxena is probing the case.
The accused reportedly convinced the victim that a SIM card taken using his Aadhaar credentials was found involved in an online fraud by the Mumbai police. He was also told that the Supreme Court had issued two arrest warrants in connection with the fraud. He was asked to pay money to get the case frozen and told that it would be refunded later. He transferred the funds in six lots to five different accounts.
The first two persons arrested by the police were found to have taken several bank accounts, which were found to have been sold to the fraudsters. These accounts were then used for moving illegal proceeds, a portion of which was given as commission to the original account holders, the police said.
Abdul Khadar and Ameer were accused of withdrawing money from these accounts and giving them to the fraudsters. The police suspect that the members of the racket might have bought bank accounts from several persons.
