Boss Scams: 2 more held in ₹10.4-crore INOX cheating case

The two arrests, made by the South Cyber police, take the total number of arrests in the INOX case to ten. Police said the accused had supplied SIM cards used in the crime

MUMBAI: Police have arrested two more individuals in the ₹10.4-crore INOX Group cheating case, both of them linked to the “Boss Scams”, where fraudsters have been getting corporate executives to transfer large sums of money from their companies to mule bank accounts on instructions of their “bosses”. In each instance, the “boss’ has been a fraudster impersonating a senior corporate executive.

Boss Scams: 2 more held in ₹10.4-crore INOX cheating case

The two arrests, made by the South Cyber police, take the total number of arrests in the INOX case to ten. Police said the accused had supplied SIM cards used in the crime, where fraudsters convinced a senior accounts executive to transfer ₹10.4 crore into mule bank accounts, by posing as a senior director of the group. Police said the accused were involved in at least five similar “Boss Scams”.

The two arrested accused are Amir Chand Mohammad Khan (22), a resident of Siwan in Bihar, and Suraj Kumar Pradeep Kumar Saw aka Vishal (22), a resident of Dhanbad in Jharkhand, said deputy commissioner of police, cyber, Bajrang Bansode. He said 161 SIM cards were seized from them.

“While investigating the INOX Group cheating case, we had earlier arrested eight people and frozen around ₹6 crore in various bank accounts. The two accused played a crucial role in providing the fraudsters with mobile SIM cards used in various crimes,” said Bansode.

“One June 3, a fraudster used these SIM cards to send WhatsApp messages to Girish Amin, deputy general manager, accounts, with the INOX Group, posing as a senior director with the group. He convinced Amin to make an urgent transfer of ₹10.4 crore to bank accounts provided by him,” said the police officer. Believing he had been interacting with the senior director, Amin followed the instructions and transferred the money.

The WhatsApp number from which messages were sent to Amin had used the name and display picture of the director to support the impersonation, police said. The WhatsApp conversation started with the fraudster informing the accounts executive that he was attending an important meeting and would call him later. Then he told Amin to transfer ₹46.5 lakh to a certain bank account.

“Between June 3 and 15, Amin allegedly acted on similar WhatsApp instructions and transferred money from the company’s accounts to multiple accounts named by the sender,” said the police officer.

“A total of 63 transactions were made, amounting to ₹10,40,71,924, the complaint alleged. The fraud came to light when Amin contacted the INOX Group director to seek invoices for the money transferred. The director said he had never instructed Amin to transfer any money,” said the police officer.

Police said one of the accused, Amir Chand Mohammad Khan, ran a mobile shop in Siwan. He had been approached by an army jawan to port his mobile number from one service provider to another. Khan took the jawan’s details and issued a fresh SIM card, but told the jawan the porting had failed. Khan then sold the SIM card to the other accused, Suraj Saw, from whom the SIM card made its way to the Boss Scam fraudsters and was used in the commission of the INOX cheating case.

“We contacted the army jawan, who was posted in Tamil Nadu. He said he had gone to his native place in Siwan and had tried to get his SIM card ported, but the process had failed. We arrested Khan based on his information,” said Nandkumar Gopale, senior police inspector of the South Cyber police station.

Police officials said Khan had similarly supplied SIM cards used in the Mega Pipes fraud case, in which an accountant was instructed to transfer ₹48 lakh on the instructions of scamsters posing as a director of the company, in February. Police have since blocked the sum in the mule bank accounts.