E-Paper
UP man held for scamming Chandigarh resident of 1.3L on pretext of rental flat in USA
Complainant Mansoor Ali told police that his wife was to visit New York for one month from November 17, following this, they started looking for a rental apartment online when they came across a website named “Zillow Property”, the same was recommended by one of his friends.
A 26-year-old man hailing from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh was arrested by the cyber cell team for duping a resident of Sector 20 of ₹1,33,123, who was looking to rent an apartment in the USA.
The accused, identified as Sunny, was arrested from Ghaziabad on December 17.
Complainant Mansoor Ali told police that his wife was to visit New York for one month from November 17, following this, they started looking for a rental apartment online when they came across a website named “Zillow Property”, the same was recommended by one of his friends.
Ali said the accused sent an email to his wife to fill out an application form and asked to deposit 100 USD, which is ₹8,350, for processing the same. His wife deposited the amount to a Paytm account in the name of one Tarun Kumar Sawant.
After Ali’s wife’s application was approved, she was asked to deposit 500 USD, which is ₹41.604. On November 14, she duly deposited the amount to the Paytm account. Later, she was asked to pay the remaining amount. When his wife reached New York, she didn’t find any apartment at the given address and the accused neither replied to emails nor answered the calls.
During the investigation, a letter to Google was sent to obtain information about the alleged Gmail account, in which IP detail of Nigeria was found. Further, records from banks concerned were also obtained and after scrutiny of bank records, it was found that the accused was part of a gang operating from Delhi NCR and Chhattisgarh.
During interrogation, Sunny disclosed that he trades cryptocurrency. First, he created an account on Binance and started trading but he was not earning much, so he applied for a merchant account and started trading in bulk. For every trading of 100 USDT he earned ₹300 to ₹400. He sold at least 1000 USDT daily.
During the investigation, police found that one Atar Singh, alias, Abhishek Kushwaha, is the kingpin of the scam and he is known to Sunny. They managed the bank accounts in which the cheated amount was deposited and circulated via cryptocurrency. They traded in cryptocurrency on different platforms and created merchant accounts to trade in bulk. Five accounts have been used by the fraudsters and transactions of cheated money.
A case under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code was registered on December 10.
