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Delhi Police bust cyber fraud gang dealing in cryptocurrency, arrest 4 persons; accused transacted Rs 75 lakhs in two days

Police stated that arrested accused Deepak Patwa used to receive a commission in cryptocurrency and later redeem it into his account through hawala transaction.

Mirror Now Digital

Updated Jul 4, 2022, 14:16 IST

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Photo : IANS

Delhi: The Cyber Crime Department of Delhi Police said that they have busted an inter-state gang of cyber frauds and arrested four persons who allegedly used to cheat people on the pretext of facilitating online loans.

The gang used to deal in cryptocurrency and learned the tactics from YouTube. They were also in touch with Chinese nationals on telegram, added the police as per a report of news agency ANI.

The arrested accused have been identified as Deepak Patwa (23), Dev Kishan (32), and Suresh Singh (45), both residents of Chittorgarh in Rajasthan, and Sunil Kumar Khatik (34), a resident of Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh.

The matter came to the fore after one Mohd Nadeem Saifi filed a complaint at Cyber Police Station Rohini claiming that he had received a text message on his phone stating "LIGHT your applied loan is approved, you can choose loan limit rangedfrom Rs 2,00,000/-, please login App..."

As per the complainant, he followed the link and fill in the basic details as directed. Then, he received a WhatsApp call from an international number and the caller asked him to deposit 5 percent of the loan amount in advance, citing it as the company’s rule which will be refunded later.

Accordingly, he deposited a total of Rs 40,000 in three transactions. However, after depositing the money, the caller stopped responding on WhatsApp.

Meanwhile, a case has been registered at PS Cyber Rohini and an investigation was initiated by the Delhi Police, reported ANI.

During the investigation and money trail, police learned that the money has been transferred into bank accounts at Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh. On further investigation, police officials learned that more than Rs 75 lakh was transferred into the alleged bank account within two days. The cheated money was used to purchase cryptocurrency on various platforms, added police.

Subsequently, police zeroed in on some suspects and carried out technical surveillance following which it was revealed that they were operating from the Chittorgarh area in Rajasthan.

After this, raids were conducted in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, and based on technical analysis as well as human intelligence, four accused persons were apprehended by the Delhi Police. The accused persons during the police interrogation revealed their identity and they were then arrested, reported ANI.

Police also recovered 15 ATM cards, seven mobile phones, and 27 SIM cards used in committing the crime. Apart from this, a dongle, laptop, tablet, six chequebooks, one BMW car, five passbooks, and Rs 20,000 were also recovered from their possession.

The arrested accused further disclosed that they got the idea (modus operandi) of cheating from YouTube. They come in touch with some Chinese nationals on telegram who used to cheat gullible people on the pretext of facilitating them loans on the online platform.

Besides, police said that the accused used to get the cheated money in different bank accounts through UPI and then convert it into cryptocurrency by purchasing USDT from duped money on a crypto exchange, as per the ANI report.

Police stated that accused Deepak Patwa used to receive a commission in cryptocurrency and later redeem it into his account through hawala.

Further investigation revealed that the IP address of the alleged WhatsApp number belongs to China. Deepak used to communicate with the Chinese people on his WhatsApp. They used to send his messages in the Chinese language and he took the help of Google Translator to translate the messages into Hindi and further also used to pass his version with help of Google translator, reported ANI.

An investigation into the matter is underway. More victims of the accused persons are being identified.

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