Five arrested for involvement in ₹13.8 cr cyber fraud

At least five men were arrested for allegedly duping a resident of Sector 25, Gurugram, of ₹13

At least five men were arrested for allegedly duping a resident of Sector 25, Gurugram, of ₹13.85 crore in an investment fraud, police said on Tuesday.

Investigators said the accused were part of the gang that solely operated bank accounts and handled transactions. (Shutterstock)

Police identified the accused as Neeraj Kumar from Delhi, Suraj Saroj from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, Surjeet Kumar alias Manas, Prashant Sharma and Tej Pratap Singh Shekhawat, all residents of Jaipur and all aged between 25 to 30 years.

Police said Neeraj was arrested by a cybercrime unit on Friday and the rest were arrested from Dehradun and Shimla on Saturday.

Sandeep Turan, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said a trader, Neeraj Gupta, was arrested from Karnal. He had sold the current account of his firm to Manjeet Dadyan for ₹50,000.

“Manjeet, who was arrested earlier, further sold the account to Neeraj Kumar for ₹60,000. Neeraj used to keep a tab on all bank accounts provided to him to ensure they were are of current account category and not used earlier in cyber fraud, before selling them to Surjeet via Suraj for ₹90,000. The duo provided access to all the bank accounts to suspects operating from China via Telegram,” he said.

According to police, Surjeet operated an America-based application where Chinese suspects allegedly transacted cryptocurrency as the gang’s commission, which was converted into US dollars and then into Indian rupees for withdrawal from ATMs.

Police said the men were arrested under sections 318(4) (cheating), 319 (cheating by personation) and 336(2) (forgery) of BNS and the Information-Technology Act.

Turan said that the victim is an owner of a private firm. “He got caught in an investment fraud in 2024 and was duped of ₹13.85 crore over the period of a few weeks. He complained at the Cybercrime (east) police station, and an FIR was registered on November 4, 2024,” he said.

Investigators said the accused were part of the gang that solely operated bank accounts and handled transactions. They came under the scanner in April this year after ₹5 lakh of the duped amount was transacted into the trader’s accounts.

Police said six phones and ₹60 lakh from various accounts have been recovered till now.