Bhubaneswar: Rourkela police arrested nine inter-state cyber fraudsters and seized several incriminating materials from them. The arrested persons are mostly from Chhattisgarh.
They include Kishan Agrawal (26) of Raipur, Kunal Agarwal (25) of Raipur, Chhattisgarh, Arjun Singh (27) of Rudraprayag, Uttarakhand, Girdhari Singh of Jaspur, Chhattisgarh, Ajay Kumar (25) of Korba, Chhattisgarh, Sandeep Kumar Soni (28) of Baloda Bazar, Chhattisgarh, Soumendra Singh Rajput (27) of Janjgir/Champa, Chhattisgarh, Abhijit Bharadwaj of Raigarh (Sarangarh), Chhattisgarh, and Dinesh Kumar Sahu (25) of Janjgir Champa, Chhattisgarh.
According to a release issued by Rourkela police, Rourkela CC& EO PS raided an apartment in Civil Township on suspicion of it being used as a hub for cyber fraud. Two accused were detained, leading to the raid of another apartment in Basanti Colony, where five other persons were detained. Various incriminating articles, fake SIMs, multiple mobile phones, and laptops were seized from them.
During interrogation, they revealed the modus operandi and stated that they were part of a trade fraud through a fake app called “TradeNow”. The apprehended team were mule account operators who transacted over Rs. 50 lakhs daily. Further investigation led to the arrest of two more accused, residents of Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
The mastermind, Kishan Agarwal, is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and operates from there, running this racket in India and other countries, as ascertained during the investigation.
The scale of fraud is under thorough scrutiny. Transactions were routed through Hawala operators, constituting an international organized crime racket across several South and West Asian countries. The accused escaped to Dubai, UAE, to evade police arrest.
A total of Rs. 1.41 crores have been seized in 23 accounts so far, and 176 accounts are under verification.
Police seized five laptops, 31 mobile phones, 68 SIM cards of different networks, 20 ID proofs, a cheque book, ATM cards, a car, and a scooter.
