The city's cyber police arrested two brothers for cheating a city businessman of the sum of $1.57 Crores in Cryptocurrency Accounting Nanowallet Fraud.
The accused have been identified as Pavankumar Tatwavedi (36) and his brother Pankaj Raghuveer Tatwavedi (35), both from Jodhpur in Rajasthan.
Police said both accused are now based in Dubai and misled people by posing as tax advisors.
The incident was reported in May 2023 and a case was registered in July 2023. Since then, the accused was in Dubai, so the police could not arrest him.
Pavankumar was arrested on the flight when it was about to leave for Dubai.
Pune cyber cell officials said the accused Pavankumar approached the victim as a tax advisor. After gaining trust, he suggested the victim invest in cryptocurrencies to earn good returns.
After gaining trust, the accused suggested purchasing a cryptocurrency ledger nano wallet to park his cryptocurrency in digital format. The victim did not know this, so the defendant helped him buy and store the victim's cryptocurrency in his wallet.
Meenal Supe-Patil, senior police inspector at Cyber Cell Pune, said: "The accused stole a 24-character password from the nano wallet and using it, he transferred cryptocurrency to another nano wallet in Dubai and duped the victim by a sum of $1.57 crore."
While the police were keeping an eye on both the accused, on November 16 the accused landed in India when he was arrested.
Police sub-inspector Dhanaji Tone said, “We received information that the accused reached Pune on November 23 taking a flight from Jodhpur to Pune and was planning to leave for Dubai. That is why we laid a trap for him at the Pune airport and arrested him.”
During his interrogation, the police came to know about his brother Pankaj and arrested him in Pune on November 24.
Both were produced before the court and the court granted them police custody till December 1.
The police further revealed that the accused duo cheated many more such people with the sum of $8 crore and an investigation is underway in this regard.
A case has been registered at a cyber police station under sections 419,420, 406 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
