PIONEER NEWS SERVICE | Dehradun
A resident of Udham Singh Nagar was defrauded of approximately Rs 81.45 lakh after being lured into an online trading scheme that promised high returns. The cyber crime police station of the Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) arrested Vaibhav Manoj Gadge from Nagpur, Maharashtra as a main accused in the case.
The deputy superintendent of police of cyber-crime police station of STF Ankush Mishra said that the accused allegedly used WhatsApp to send messages posing as a representative of a trading company. He added victims to WhatsApp groups, where pre-instructed members shared screenshots of fake profits to create trust. Victims were encouraged to invest in what appeared to be a high-yield trading opportunity. Mishra said that to gain credibility, the accused used a fake application to display manipulated dashboards showing large profits on the invested amount. Once victims deposited money, it was transferred across multiple bank accounts. The accused then rerouted the funds to other accounts, making recovery difficult.
The DSP stated that the cyber police collected data from banks, telecom providers and Meta to trace the flow of funds and identify the mobile numbers and bank accounts used in the scam. During the investigation, Gadge was found to be the beneficiary of an ICICI Bank account involved in the transaction. He was located in Nagpur and brought to the Rudrapur-based cyber crime unit for further legal proceedings.
The DSP said that the preliminary inquiry revealed that the bank accounts used in the fraud recorded transactions worth crores of rupees within a few months. Eight complaints related to online financial fraud involving the same account holder have been registered in different states, including Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. He informed that Uttarakhand STF’s senior officials are coordinating with Police departments across the country for further investigation.
