Pimpri Chinchwad police busted inter state online task fraud gang ; 14 Cyber fraudsters traced
Pune based Financial advisor falls victim to online task fraud, loses Rs 20 lakh
A case of cyber fraud had happened on 15th October 2023 with a woman who lodged a complaint with the Hinjawadi Police. During it’s investigation, many more cases of cyber fraud & fake bank accounts were reported.
As per further information from the press release of Pimpri Chinchwad Police, on 15/10/2023, a female complainant had lodged a complaint at Hinjawadi Police Station that she was given the job of reviewing and rating different hotels and restaurants on Google Maps by the mobile number holder 8795307251 through WhatsApp messages and Telegram ID @AnanyaAnu023. By giving different tasks and asking her to complete them on the coinswitch portal & telling her how to withdraw her money for doing the task, the accused gained her trust by contacting her from different Telegram IDs like @Varunpp1, @Sanjay898, @customer028, @finance546 and asked her to invest her money on the coinswitch portal and get hefty return. However, the victim was cheated.
Hence, a case under IPC Sections 420, 406, 467, 468, 471, 120 (b), 34 & IT Act Section 66 had been registered at Hinjawadi Police Station.
Since these types of online fraud crimes are happening frequently across the country and people are being defrauded on a large scale, Pimpri Chinchwad Commissioner of Police Vinaykumar Choubey took a serious note of the matter and ordered the police to trace the accused and bring the crime to light.
As the said crime is of a serious and technical nature, they assigned the investigation of the said crime to Senior Police Inspector Shankar Awatade of Crime Branch, Unit-4 and assigned the technical analysis of the said crime to Assistant Police Inspector Ambarish Deshmukh, Police Inspector Ganesh Raikar etc.
Then, the officers and enforcers of the Crime Branch Unit-4 took information about the various bank accounts into which the money was transferred by the complainant in the said crime. After a thorough technical analysis of the said incident, the accused was searched for. A total of 14 accused have been identified and arrested.
It has been found that the accused have committed the crime in three levels, in the first level, the accused were searching for poor needy persons and creating accounts and firms in their names in different private banks, in the second level, the accused were selling bank accounts and kit cheque books and internet banking. In the third level, the accused lured the victims with getting money through online tasks and then contacted the victims through WhatsApp and Telegram and lured them into doing the online tasks.
After conducting a planned technical investigation on the said accused and finding the present whereabouts of the accused, they assigned the investigation to Police Officers Ambarish Deshmukh, Ganesh Raikar, Narayan Jadhav, Sanjay Gaware, Pravin Dale, Tushar Shete, Mohammad Gaus Nadaf, Vasudev Mundhe, Prashant etc.
After preparing two teams, the said teams worked day and night to find the accused from Indore, Ratlam, Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh, Jaipur, Udaipur, Bhilwara in the state of Rajasthan, Vadodara in the state of Gujarat, Patna in the state of Bihar and more.
Hence, the following 14 accused have been arrested in the registered crime:
1) Chintan Shashikant Phadke
2) Brajraj Ramratan Vaishnav
3) Sunderdas Chetandas Sindhi
4) Rajesh Bhagwandar Karamani
5) Mohammad Rashid Chand Mohammad
6) Abhishek Satyanarayan Parashar
7) Ashish Pralhadarai Jaju
8) Mohammad Rauf Mohammad Rashid
9) Navinkumar Nevandram Asnani
10) Vikas Satyanarayan Parikh
11) Suresh Govardhanas Sindhi
12) Gaurav Mahaveer Sen
13) Lalit Navrathan Mal Parik
14) Manish Rishikesh Vaishnav
According to the investigation of the crime filed against the said accused, the said accused went to various big cities of the country in a very planned manner and hired people looking for jobs, obtained Shop Act, Enterprise/MSME certificate online in the name of different private firms.
Fraudulent transactions of nearly Rs 200 crores have taken place from various accounts of the accused and the process of freezing all the accounts and analyzing the money trail is underway to recover the money.
So far, 17 cases of financial fraud in different Indian cities have been revealed:
1) Hinjewadi Police Station, Gu.R. No.-1074/2023 B.P.P. Section-420,406,467,468,471,120 (b),34 I.T. Act 66 (d)
2) Hinjewadi Police Station, Gu.R. No.-1121/2023 B.D. Vs. Section-420, 406, i. T. Act 66 (d)
3) Wakad Police Station, Gu.R. No.-959/2023 B.D. Vs. Section-420,406, I.T. Act 66 (d)
4) Chinchwad Police Station, G.R. No.-476/2023 B.D.P. Section-420,406, I.T. Act 66 (d)
5) Chinchwad Police Station, Gu.R. No.-478/2023 B.D.Vs. Section-420,406, I.T. Act 66
(d) 6) Pimpri Police Station, G.R. No.-922/2023 B.D. Vs. Section-420,406, I.T. Act 66 (d)
7) Alandi Police Station, Gu.R. No.-271/2023 B.D. Vs. Section 420,406, I.T. Act 66 (d)
8) Chikhli Police Station, G.R.No.- 619/2023 B.D.V.Section-420,406
9) Avadhutwadi Police Station, G.R. No.-955/2023 I.D.V.Section-420,406, IT. Act 66 (d) (Yavatmal)
10) Avadhutwadi Police Station, G.R. No.-1215/2023 B.D. Vs. Sections 420, 406, i. T. Act 66 (d) (Yavatmal)
11) East Division Cyber Police Station, G.R. No.-59/2023 B.D. Vs. Section 420,120 (b) i. T. Act 66 (d)
12) East Division Cyber Police Station, G.R. No.-45/2023 B.D.V. Section-420,406,467,468,471,120 (b), 34 I. T. Act 66 (d) (Mumbai)
13) South Division Cyber Police Station, G.R. No. 11/2023 B.D.V.K-420,406,467,468,471,120(B), 34 IT. Act 66 (D) (Mumbai)
14) CyberCrime Police Station, Cyberabad, G.R. No.-1520/2023Bh.No. Vs. K-420, I. T. Act 66 (d) (Karnataka)
15) Central Cyber Police Station Bangalore at G.R. No.-427/2023 B.D. Vs. Section-419A 420, I.T. Act 66 (d) (Karnataka)
16) CyberCrime Police Station, Agra, G.R. No.-63/2023 B.D. Vs. Section-420, I.T. Act 66 (d) (Uttar Pradesh)
17) CyberCrime Police Station, Howrah, Gu.R. No.-19/2023 B.D. Vs. Section-419,420,406,120 (b), I.T. Act 66 (d) (West Bengal)
Shreyas Vange
