Cyber conmen based in Cambodia tricked the accountant of UP cabinet minister Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi into transferring ₹2.08 crore to their bank accounts, police investigations have revealed. The bank accounts, registered under fake company names, were traced to branches in Kolkata and Siliguri.
In-charge of the Cyber Police Station, Inspector Rajeev Tiwari, said that investigations into the cyber fraud incident indicate that the conmen were operating from Cambodia, Dubai, Pakistan, and other countries. There are clues suggesting that cyber conmen based in Cambodia were behind the recent fraud committed with an accountant, he added.
The incident occurred on November 13 when Ritesh Srivastava, the accountant for Nandi’s firm, received a WhatsApp message from a number displaying the profile picture of the company’s director and Nandi’s son, Abhishek Gupta. Believing it was a legitimate request from the director, Srivastava shared the company’s account details. He was later asked to transfer the money to three different bank accounts, allegedly for urgent business deals.
On November 24, police arrested five cyber criminals and froze over ₹12 lakh that had been transferred to various bank accounts. The suspects were identified as Divyanshu Singh (24) from Patna, Pulkit Dwivedi (20) from Mau, Sanjeev Kumar Rai (41), Surjeet Singh (28), and Vijay Kumar from Bareilly.
Investigations revealed that Divyanshu and Pulkit arranged for the bank accounts used to receive the stolen funds. They lured victims to share their account details with promises of high commissions for each transaction. The fraudsters used two bank accounts, registered under the names Globalisation Trading Private Limited and Galaxy Electronics, to transfer ₹1.48 crore. An additional ₹1.21 crore was funneled into 22 different bank accounts.
{{/usCountry}}Investigations revealed that Divyanshu and Pulkit arranged for the bank accounts used to receive the stolen funds. They lured victims to share their account details with promises of high commissions for each transaction. The fraudsters used two bank accounts, registered under the names Globalisation Trading Private Limited and Galaxy Electronics, to transfer ₹1.48 crore. An additional ₹1.21 crore was funneled into 22 different bank accounts.
{{/usCountry}}Cyber cops traced the initial message sent to Srivastava to a call center in Cambodia, from where the local agents transferred the stolen funds into various accounts. Police officials confirmed that they are identifying the holders of these bank accounts. Additionally, around 100 more bank accounts used for transferring the illicit funds will be frozen.