The cyber police of the Mumbai Police have arrested a 45-year-old man, a resident of Kerala, in connection with a cyber fraud which involves duping a senior citizen to the tune of Rs. 3.98 crores.
According to the police, the arrested accused is identified as Anup Kumar Kurikottal, who was living in the Masjid Bunder area in a rented house for a short period of time.
The matter first surfaced when the 72-year-old man from CP Tank approached the police and registered a case against an unknown person for the charges of cheating and the Information Technology Act.
As per the complainant, he was approached by an individual who introduced himself as Naresh, a police officer, and told him about his involvement in a money laundering case. Naresh made the complainant sit in front of a video call for hours on the pretext of ‘interrogation’ and demanded him to pay money into various bank accounts.
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The complainant ended up paying Rs. 3.98 crores. After the case was registered, police began the investigation and found out details of the bank accounts to which the complainant transferred the money, which is when the accused Anup’s name popped up.
During the course of the investigation, police found out that Anup had created over 42 bank accounts using different names of people mostly from Kerala and Mumbai, and all the money these accounts received, through cyber fraud, were moved to another account, originating in Dubai.
Police received a tip about Anup showing up in Mumbai to meet the owner of the house in Masjid Bunder to pay his dues (rent) which was when they laid a trap and arrested him.
All the money accumulated in Anup’s created bank accounts kept on transferring to foreign accounts, the police said, adding that further probe is being conducted to nab the main accused handling the syndicate.
