Two people from Indore in Madhya Pradesh who cheated a city-based woman to the tune of ₹1.20 crore on the pretext of online trading have been arrested by the Hyderabad Cyber Crime police.
The accused Rahul Siraswal (29), a driver and Mahesh Dev (25), a welder are natives of Indore.
The woman had approached police stating that in November last, she received notification through Facebook id ‘Sakshi Mehta’ claiming to be a consultant in stock trading with Company Central Trade Research, Vasant Kunj in New Delhi.
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They called the complainant over mobile phone and asked to open a demat account for online trading and assured get huge profits. “Believing her words, the woman accepted the offer and further provided bank accounts to the complainant and asked to transfer money,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Detective Department) Avinash Mohanty said.
Initially, she transferred ₹5 lakh for trading. “After that Sakshi Mehta told her that she got ₹88 lakh profit in the trading and to claim the profit she needed to pay the amount as per company rules,” he said.
Soon, the complainant transferred ₹1.20 crore into the bank accounts provided by the fraudsters and later came to know that she was cheated by them on the pretext of online trading.
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Based on her complaint, a case was registered and the accused were arrested. Police seized two mobile phones, 12 debit cards and five credit cards of HDFC, RBL and Axis banks.
According to Mr.Mohanty, Rahul, Dev along with other accused persons hatched a plan to cheat innocent people on the pretext of online trading.
“As per their plan, they have opened several bank accounts with different names in various banks in various places of Madhya Pradesh. The accused contacted the victims in the guise of online trading and offered huge profits to them, falling into their trap, many victims transferred huge amounts to their bank accounts,” he said.
So far, the accused persons were involved in three cases at Cyber Crime, Hyderabad and Ambika Nagar police station, Chhattisgarh.
Mr. Mohanty cautioned the general public not to transfer funds in advance responding to online fraudsters, trading websites and on social media platforms without verifying the authenticity of the persons and companies.