3 days after 4 held in Ggm for cyber fraud, police outline how they avoided FIU

Gurugram: Three days after four suspected members of a gang from Sector-19 in Panchkula were arrested in a case of cyber fraud registered in Gurugram, police said the men were using current accounts to evade surveillance by banks and the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Union finance ministry and were continuously siphoning money to Dubai and China.

The arrested suspects have been identified as Chandra Prakash Tiwari of Kaithal and Ankit Tiwari, Nitin Kumar and Abhinav Kumar of Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. Investigators said all of them had studied till Class 12.

The gang had allegedly cheated a city resident of ₹8.5 lakh after luring him to earn money by liking videos and posts on social media for which a case was registered under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code at Cybercrime police station (east) on November 30.

Assistant commissioner of police (cybercrime), Priyanshu Dewan, said that the gang had been using seven current accounts lodged with different banks. “The motive behind using such accounts was that there were no debit and credit transactions limit for them which avoided banking or FIU surveillance,” he said.

Dewan said the suspects had cheated nearly ₹15 crore from victims in Gurugram and other cities within eight months and had siphoned off the money to Dubai and China via cryptocurrency after keeping their 1% commission.

“Tiwari was in touch with his handler lodged in Lucknow jail. They were in further contact with a Chinese person via Telegram, who was the gang leader,” he said, adding that overall six suspects were arrested in the case.

Investigators said Tiwari was a betting addict and had come in contact with the inmate via a betting platform. On the inmate’s directions, Tiwari tried to get access of current accounts and trapped a student Ashutosh Kumar in Gopalganj, Bihar by luring him with commission for providing an account kit.

Kumar roped in his friend Utkarsh Soni, a jeweller in Prayagraj who opened an account and gave its access to Tiwari for ₹15000 monthly rental. Soni and Kumar were arrested on February 14 and 18. Tiwari later roped in the three Bijnor residents in the gang who opened six more current accounts to dupe people. According to the police, Tiwari had created a shell poultry firm in Zirakpur as camouflage to run the gang. Three mobile phones and four bank account kits were seized from the suspects.