Pimpri-Chinchwad Crime: Cyber Police Arrest Five For Duping Over 150 Residents Of ₹25 Crore - VIDEO

Pimpri-Chinchwad: Pimpri-Chinchwad Police have arrested five people for duping over 150 residents by cyber fraud, officials announced on Thursday. These arrested cyber fraudsters are accused of looting over ₹25 crore from citizens across the nation. A common trick they used was luring common people with promises of high returns on minimal investments and then committing the scam.

Watch Video:

The action was taken by the Cyber Police Station. They arrested Yasir Abdul Majid Shaikh (34, Undri), Mohammad Sultan Ahmed Mohammad Jeheruddin (30, Bihar), Maajh Afsar Mirza (24, Swargate), Hussain Tahir Sohail Shaikh (23, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), and Baburao Shiv Kiran Meru (41, Hadapsar).

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Dr Shivaji Pawar said, "A man working in a pharma company reached out to us regarding fraud where he was promised a daily return of 10 to 20% on share market investments. He was added to a WhatsApp group and met unknown people. After getting initial returns on investments, the victim ended up investing ₹8.35 lakh, but he didn’t get it back. Realising he was duped, he filed a complaint at the Cyber Police Station."

Police further said they started tracing accounts and found an account where a big chunk of money was transferred. The account was based in Sangli and Kolhapur, but technical analysis revealed that the accused were operating from Pune's Kondhwa. They detained a man named Yash Bharat Patole (25, Kondhwa, native of Kolhapur), but he told police that he didn’t handle his account; his friends did.

DCP Dr Pawar further said that based on Patole's information, police raided a hotel room in Kondhwa and found the five accused who were involved in committing cybercrime. From them, nine mobiles, 15 SIM cards, four CCTV cameras, eight cheque books, 20 ATM and debit cards, one laptop, one memory card, one passport, and ₹13,550 in cash were seized.

"The fraudsters were found collaborating with Chinese people and used to send the duped money of residents outside the country in the form of cryptocurrency, USDT. They have duped a total of 150–160 residents until now across the country, and prima facie, they have defrauded these people of over ₹25 crore. Cyber Police are investigating the matter further. They are currently in police custody," DCP Dr Pawar said.

This action was conducted under the guidance of Pimpri-Chinchwad Commissioner of Police Vinoy Kumar Choubey, JCP Dr Shashikant Mahavarkar, Addl CP Sarang Awhad, DCP (Crime) Dr Shivaji Pawar, and ACP (Crime 1) Dr Vishal Hire.

The Cyber Police team was led by PI Ravikiran Nale, which included API Pravin Swami; PSIs Vaibhav Patil, Sagar Poman, Rohit Dolas, Prakash Katkade, and Vidya Patil; Police Constables Hemant Kharat, Subhas Patil, Abhijeet Ukirde, Atul Lokhande, Saurabh Ghate, Praveen Shelkade, Sachin Ghadage, Mukund Ware, Deepak Bhosale, Sopan Bodhwad, Madhav Arote, Suraj Shinde, Swapnil Kanase, Vishal Nichit, Nilesh Deshmukh, and Santosh Sapkal; and Women Constables Jyoti Sale, Deepali Chavan, and Namrata Kamble.

Public Prosecutor Girish Bargaje helped in advocating the police's side in court and securing police custody for the accused.