Chandigarh: Punjab police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested one more accused and recovered a Rs 2.05 crore hawala money from his possession, taking the total number of arrests in the recent state's cyber fraud case to 39 and total recovered amount to Rs 2.15 crore.
Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Gaurav Yadav, said that the accused has been identified as Pawan, a resident of Bikaner in Rajasthan.
According to official information, the police had recently busted a major cyber fraud racket in Phagwara area that primarily targeted people in the USA and Canada under the guise of providing software solutions, arresting 38 accused persons and recovering 40 laptops, 67 mobile phones, and Rs 10 lakh in cash.
DGP Yadav said that the police teams zeroed-in on one Ludhiana-based hawala operator and raids are being conducted to nab him. Preliminary investigations have revealed that transactions were primarily conducted through Bitcoin, and hawala channels have also been found involved, he said.
The DGP said that further investigations are on to establish forward and linkages in this case to expose the full nexus.
Police said that following the human-based and technical investigations into the case, police conducted a raid at the premises of the Hawala operator in Ludhiana, where his assistant Pawan was arrested from the spot and cash worth Rs 2.05 crores was recovered. The racket was being operated by a local individual identified as Amrinder Singh alias Sabhi Tohri, who had leased the premises in Phagwara. He is linked to Suraj from Delhi, who is further linked with a suspect named Shen from Kolkata, police said.
