Hyd police bust ₹900-cr investment racket; 10 held
Disclosing this to reporters, Hyderabad police commissioner CV Anand said the arrested people identified as Sahil Bajaj, Sunny alias Pankaj, Virender Singh, Sanjay Yadav, Navneeth Kaushik, Mohammad Parvez, Syed Sultan and Mirza Nadeem Baig, besides Chinese national Lec alias Li Zhounjau and Taiwan national Chu Chun Yu.
The Hyderabad cybercrime police on Wednesday busted a major investment racket by China-based firms running into around ₹903 crore and arrested 10 people, including a Chinese and a Taiwan national, officers said.
Disclosing this to reporters, Hyderabad police commissioner CV Anand said the arrested people identified as Sahil Bajaj, Sunny alias Pankaj, Virender Singh, Sanjay Yadav, Navneeth Kaushik, Mohammad Parvez, Syed Sultan and Mirza Nadeem Baig, besides Chinese national Lec alias Li Zhounjau and Taiwan national Chu Chun Yu.
Giving details of the case, the police commissioner said a case was booked last month based on a complaint lodged by a Tarnaka-based man stating that he was cheated after investing ₹1.6 lakh in a mobile investment application called Loxam.
“On investigation, it was found that the money of the complainant was deposited in the bank account of IndusInd Bank in the name of Xindai Technologies Pvt Ltd, which was opened by Virender Singh,” Anand said.
The police arrested Singh from Pune and during interrogation, he said he had opened the bank account on instructions from Chinese national named Jack and had given him the user name and password of the internet banking account.
Further investigations revealed that Xindai Technologies shared the same phone number with another company – Betench Networks Pvt Ltd whose bank account was opened by Sanjay Kumar Yadav of Delhi on the instructions of Lec alias Li Zhounjau.
The bank account details were shared with Pei and Huan Zhuan in China.
Similarly, he opened 15 other bank accounts and sent them to one Chu Chun-Yu of Taiwan who had come to Mumbai. This Taiwan national, who was picked up by Hyderabad police on Monday, also used to send account details, User ID, password and SIM cards to other countries.
“Using their agents like Sanjay Yadav, Virender Rathor, Sultan, Nadeem Baig and others, these Chinese and Taiwan nationals operated bank accounts in various banks in India and collected deposits from gullible customers. These agents, in turn, were paid commission up to ₹1.2 lakh per account,” Anand said.
Police found that a large amount of money from the 38 accounts of Xindai Technologies Pvt Ltd went to Ranjan MoneyCorp and KDS Forext Pvt Ltd. This money is sent to foreign exchange companies run in the name of International Tours and Travels.
“Though these forex firms are licenced by the Reserve Bank of India, the accused repeatedly flouted the guidelines laid down by RBI regarding money changing activities. Sahil and Sunny joined hands with other fraudsters and transferred the above money abroad through hawala,” the police commissioner said.
He said the transactions in the account of Ranjan Money Corp Pvt Ltd, were to the tune of ₹441 crore rupees in a period of 7 months. Another ₹462 crore worth transactions were done in KDS Forex Pvt Ltd account. “Thus, fraud was committed through hawala to the extent of ₹903 crore,” he said, adding that an amount of ₹1.91 crore was frozen in various bank accounts in this case.
The police commissioner has not revealed the sections of the Indian Penal Code under which the case was booked against the arrested accused.
