The Hyderabad Cyber Crimes Marketing Intelligence team traced and arrested two accused inter-state criminals, who defrauded the people by claiming to provide lucrative business opportunities.
The accused were identified as Shivam Shantanu Singh of Bokaro Steel City in Jharkhand and Rahul Kumar of Nasrathpur in Sheikhpura district of Bihar.
According to the police, in March last year, a resident of Nallakunta approached him saying that he had been in the stock market business for the last 25 years and was investing in the market.
In the first week of February 2020, a Narendra Kumar contacted him through a United Kingdom contact number and claimed to be a stock advisor to Ladbrokes.com and an advisor to some NRI Indians.
He suggested the victim to invest in UK shares and told him that he could earn 15% per month in daily business and asked him to make an initial investment of ₹ 25 lakh.
“Initially the victim refused to deal with him, however, the accused persuaded the victim with a return of 15% per month. As it appears that the victim agreed to a transaction with him,” United Commissioner of Police (Intelligence Department) Avinash Mohanty said.
When the victim inquired about opening a trading account, Mr. Kumar assured the victim that he could trade through Mr. Kumar’s trading account and promised to trade on his behalf.
Mr. Kumar asked the victim to transfer ₹ 20 lakh to his sister’s bank account to buy stock and defrauded the victim. Based on their complaint, a case was registered.
In another case, a person from Shah-Ali-Banda contacted the cyber crime police in January after his brother conducted an online search to take dealerships of Haldiram products. On 26 November last year, he received a call from Ashish Kumar, who claimed to be the manager (sales and distribution) department of Haldiram Foods International Pvt Ltd and asked him where he lived.
They then told them that the company would be ready to give them a dealership in that area and them. Asked to pay a deposit of one lakh.
The brothers expressed their inability to pay such a large amount of money and a few days later a Ravi Kumar called them and said that he is heading the sales and distribution and since there is no other dealership in the area, they are in business with the complainant. Wanted to land a lesser amount.
The complainants were asked to pay ₹ 25,000 as registration fee and an invoice was received for the same. On December 19, 2020, the victims received another call in which ₹ 1 lakh was paid as security money and ₹ 50,000 as settlement fee, which they paid over the next few days.
When the complainants ordered goods worth 8 lakhs, the fraudsters asked them to pay 50% in advance as it was their first order. From time to time the victim paid period 21.60 lakhs at various intervals and finally realized that he had been cheated by the accused.
According to Mr. Mohanty, Mr. Shivam along with his other colleagues Mr. Nagender and Ms. Sunita Kumari planned to cheat the victims by trading in the stock market promising high returns. “To receive deposits from victims, they have used bank accounts and a Google payment number and insisted that victims deposit funds into those accounts. Mr Nagendra contacted the victims with a UK WhatsApp number and introduced himself as Ladbrokes.com’s lead broker.
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