Chembur woman arrested for ‘buying’ bank accounts for cyber fraud

35-year-old Nisha Yadav, a law course drop-out, arrested by Mumbai cyber police for involvement in cyber fraud cases, duping a businessman of ₹4.15 crore.

Mumbai: The West cyber police have arrested a 35-year-old woman, a law course drop-out, for her alleged involvement in three cyber fraud cases in the last four months including a case in which a 73-year-old Jogeshwari-based businessman was duped of ₹4.15 crore.

The woman was allegedly involved in three cases of fraud. (Shutterstock)

Her role came to light during the interrogation of four men the police had arrested in connection with these cases. The four accused had allegedly shared details of their bank accounts to the woman identified as Nisha Yadav, a Chembur resident, in exchange for ₹15,000 each. Police say Yadav provided the details of many bank accounts she had “purchased” to cyber fraudsters who used them to defraud people of several crores of rupees.

The four men arrested are Subhash Dhumale, 30, and Vinod Malgunde, 34, both residents of Ramabai Colony in Ghatkopar (East), Rupesh Bhupendra Singh, 45, a resident of Dombivali, and Ketab Ali Vishwas, 37, from Prabhat Colony in Santacruz (East).

In one such case of cyber fraud, a 73-year-old garment trader received a WhatsApp message in May 2023 asking if he was interested in commodity trading to make quick profits. He showed interest and was added to a WhatsApp group.

The woman communicating with him on WhatsApp engaged him in chat every day for two hours or more. The trader trusted the details of his online bank account to the woman who made almost 30 transactions with it. The trader was duped into investing a total of ₹4.15 crore from October 2023 to January 2024, said a police officer.

The woman sent him a link to a virtual wallet through which he could see his investments and the profits generated. And to gain his trust she credited an amount of ₹53 lakh as profit in his bank account, said the police officer.

The fraud came to light when the trader sought to withdraw the entire amount in his virtual wallet and the woman started avoiding his messages. When the trader checked the app, he found the virtual wallet had also vanished. He approached the West cyber police who registered a case on January 26.

During investigation, the police found a total of 330 bank accounts that had seen such transactions. They wrote to the concerned banks and received responses on 136 accounts leading to them seizing a total of ₹1.69 crore. The police found that some ₹40 lakh had been deposited in the bank account of Ketab Ali Vishwas and arrested him.

Vishwas confessed to the police that he had “sold” his bank account to Rupesh Singh, among the four arrested, who paid him ₹15,000. Vishwas handed over the debit card and cheque books to Singh.

Police arrested Singh on March 21 who revealed that Nisha Yadav was using the bank account and she had paid ₹25,000 to him for the same. Yadav was arrested on April 2 from Bandra area once her role was confirmed. Yadav was procuring such bank accounts and providing them to cyber criminals on commission basis, said police inspector Dattaram Chavan of the West cyber police station.

The second case registered on January 13 related to a 34-year-old Versova resident who was duped of ₹13.92 lakh. He had fallen prey to Instagram messages promising quick money. Based on his complaint, the police arrested Dhumal and Malgunde on March 15 from Ghatkopar area.

Malgunde had opened a bank account using Dhumal’s documents in ICICI Bank and sold the account to Rupesh Singh. Singh shared the debit card and cheque books to Nisha who paid them ₹15,000 each, said official. Police found 1.35 lakh transactions in Dhumal’s account.

The third cyber fraud case was registered in December last year. A Santacruz resident was duped of ₹11.78 lakh.