9 held by Hyderabad city’s cyber crime police for Rs.712-cr investment fraud, siphoning funds to China

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad police on Saturday busted a big 'International Investment Fraud' and nabbed nine offenders in a Rs. 712-crore cybercrime.

The police recovered 17 mobile phones, two computers, 22 sim cards, four debit cards, documents belonging to 33 companies, three bank cheque books, 12 cash notes and six coins of Chinese Yuan currency, and one passport from the offenders.

According to Hyderabad Police Commissioner CV Anand, they began investigating this crime after getting a complaint from a victim who lives in Chikadpally and lost Rs 81 lakhs from his account. He was offered part-time work as a 'Rate and Review' using the Telegram app; he thought it was authentic and enrolled on their website, which turned out to be a fictitious website.

Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police trapped and apprehended nine suspects in investment fraud from Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad.

Prakash Mulchandbhai Prajapati and Kumar Prajapati, the main accused are brothers who hail from Ahemdabad.

The remaining suspects are from Hyderabad and Mumbai: Naimuddin Wahiduddin Shaik, Gagan Kumar Soni, Parveez and Shameer Khan, Arul Dass, Mohammed Munawar, and Shah Sumair.

A case was registered at Chikkadpally Cyber Crime Police registered a case in Cr. No. 598/2023 based on the complaint.

According to the the Commissioner, the target (victim) was initially given simple tasks such as giving five stars to one set of five assignments by investing a small sum of Rs 1,000 and earning Rs 866 profit. Every time he invested money, the amount was displayed in a window similar to an online wallet, with options such as invest money, withdraw money, perform tasks, etc.

The arrested accused persons linked up with Chinese nationals for quick profits by providing bank accounts for a commission of 2-3 percent and granting them access to the accounts by providing internet login credentials and using remote accessing apps like COOLTECH on Android platform and forcing them to operate the accounts.

They converted the INR into USD (Crypto) and syphoned off the Indian wealth into China once they successfully defrauded the victims' money into these accounts.