Three men have been arrested for allegedly cheating people out of thousands of rupees under the pretense of investing in cryptocurrency, police said on Wednesday.
The defendants were identified as Pushkar Jat (22), Vishal Tank (21) and Nitesh Mali (20), they said.
According to police, the matter came to light in April after a Mayur Vihar resident filed a complaint alleging that she had been tricked under the pretense of investing money in cryptocurrency. Instead, a group of cheaters active on the Telegram app scammed her out of Rs 7.80 lakh.
Initially, he received a message on WhatsApp about working from home and was tasked with posting reviews on Google for different hotels and was paid some money to gain their trust. Later, she was asked to join Telegram to earn more and was urged to invest money online in cryptocurrency through an Android APK application. He became suspicious when his Telegram account was blocked and he was unable to withdraw the invested money, police said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Amrutha Gugloth said during the investigation it was found that the cheated money was transferred to 8-10 different bank accounts opened in Haryana, Noida, Maharashtra and other parts of the country. Information was obtained regarding the alleged bank accounts in which the whistleblower transferred a deceived partial amount of Rs 2.23 lakh. Based on technical evidence and surveillance, a raid was carried out in Akola, Chittorgarh in Rajasthan and all three accused were arrested in the case, she said. โDuring questioning, it was revealed that these individuals were also selling bank accounts after activating network banking and UPI to foreign nationals from China, Indonesia, Nepal and other countries and receiving a large amount in exchange for that,โ he added.
Mobile phones containing details of bank accounts used for cheating, bank account kits and SIM cards were recovered, police said, adding that further investigations are underway.
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