Mumbai: Three people were arrested for allegedly duping a Kandivali resident of ₹31 lakh after luring him to invest in the shares of a non-existent company.
As per the Mumbai Cyber Police, the accused, identified as Kalyansingh Chandel alias Piyush Agarwal, 29 and Anuj Bhagoria, 30, were arrested from Uttar Pradesh, whereas the third accused – identified as Bhimsingh Meena, 28, were nabbed from Indore.
Between April 2021 and March 16, 2023, the accused called the victim and lured him into investing in shares in AK Financial, a share trading company which was owned by Meena, said a police officer. “The accused pretended to be employees of the company and sent the complainant an email along with all the relevant documents of the company to gain his trust. The fraud also told the complainant that he could invest in gold and gain huge profits through their company.”
Then, the victim had invested in the shares, after which the accused had sent screenshots of fake profits on his shares and got him to invest more money, added the officer. When the victim tried to encash the profits, the accused gave excuses of tax, however, when the victim insisted, the trio told him that his account had incurred losses and refused to give him the profits assuring him that if he invested more money, they could convert the loss into profit and send him.
The officers from the North Region Cyber police station said that when the victim refused to invest more money, they threatened to send recovery agents to his house and harass his family members.
“By March this year, the victim had invested ₹31 lakh in the AK Financial company after which the victim approached the cyber police,” said the police officer. The police then traced the bank accounts used by the accused and the IP addresses of their computer from which the email had been sent and tracked the accused.
The police have recovered a laptop, several SIM cards and more than 15 debit cards linked to various bank accounts along with chequebooks and passbooks.
“We have arrested the accused and are trying to recover the money which was invested by the victim. We are also trying to find out how many more were cheated by the accused,” said the officer.