Three arrested for duping several people using “online share trading” con

MUMBAI: The West Cyber police arrested three men - one from Nagpur and two from Panvel for duping more than 40 people of crores of rupees by luring them to invest money in their fake trading app.

The incident came to light when a 52-year-old complainant from the western suburbs registered a case in the first week of April after he was cheated of ₹15 lakh.

One of the arrested accused, identified as Vipul Kamlakar Patne, 28, is native of Nagpur, while the two others, Anmol Kumar Ritesh Shahi, 20, and Shivam Omprakash, 26, are residents of Panvel. The police have seized three mobile phones, 11 passbooks, 14 cheque books, and several ATM cards of various banks from the accused, who were sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

According to the police, the complainant was added to a WhatsApp group in March where people shared their investments in share markets. One of the accused later personally texted him on WhatsApp and lured him to invest in the share market through their company.

Police acquired leads from technical evidence after scrutinising bank accounts involved in the transactions, before arresting Patne on April 25. On questioning him, the police were led to the other two accused, who were arrested on April 26.

“They gained the trust of the victims by forcing them to invest in a fake app for stock trading and showed them bogus profits on their virtual account so they could invest more by transferring money to the accused,” said a police officer.

During investigation, it was found that the first accused, Patne, was allegedly involved in 39 cybercrimes across the country as per the data reflected on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. They have defrauded crores of rupees from the people, said a police officer.