Five Cyber Fraudsters Arrested in Jaipur and Thane

MUMBAI: Five people from Rajasthan and Thane were arrested by the Vakola police on Saturday in connection with several cyber fraud cases in the country. The arrested suspects are Rajkaran Tanwar, 19, and Karan Segar, 19, both from Jaipur, Rajasthan, and Mohammad Ansari, 27, Miraj Akram, 24, and Fujeel Ahmed Ansari, 21, all from Bhiwandi in Thane.

The arrests were the result of a case filed in January, where a 26-year-old Santacruz (East) resident was a victim of a job scam, losing ₹3.4 lakh. Police Inspector Amar Patil said that during the investigation, officers reviewed bank transactions and found that the account of the fraud was in Rajasthan. Taking cues from this, a police squad was sent to the region, where they identified Tanwar and Segar, who were reportedly tasked with shuffling money between accounts prior to converting it to cryptocurrency.

It further came to light that Mohammad Ansari too was a part of the racket, controlling about 70 bank accounts which did not belong to him. Ansari revealed details about the two other accused persons in the course of his interrogation, which resulted in the arrests of all five persons.

Inspector Patil described that the accused suspects arrested hatched a conspiracy to cheat people across the nation and built up the losses which totaled close to ₹30 crore. In the last four months only, three cyber fraud cases have been registered with the West, East, and North cyber police stations, whereby victims were cheated of ₹7.27 crore, ₹41 lakh, and ₹14 lakh respectively. Even similar cases had been reported at Pune, in addition to which there were registrations with cyber police stations in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, where victims were cheated of ₹22 lakh and ₹48 lakh.

The five suspects were brought before the court and remanded into police custody until April 28, as investigations continue to reveal more details of their money laundering operations.