Pramesh S Jain & Dr.Thomas (Special Correspondent)
T
he CCB busted a online investment scam racket and arrested a gang of six people involved in multi crore racket runs up to Rs.854 crore by cheating thousands of victims across India on the pretext of an investment scheme, officials said on Saturday.
The accused have been identified as Manoj alias Jack, Paneendra,Vasanth,Srinivasa,Chakradhar alias Chakri and Somashekar alias Uncle.The accused were residing in Vidyaranyapura and Yelahanka.They managed accounts based on the instructions by their counterparts from abroad.
Senior officer said,Out of the total cheated amount,Rs five crore had been frozen and efforts are on to track down the rest of the money.
The accused lured the gullible victims through Whatsapp and Telegram.Initially,they were asked to invest smaller amounts ranging from Rs.1,000 to 10,000 on the pretext that they would earn Rs.1,000 to 5,000 per day as a profit,a senior police officer said.
Thousands of victims invested money ranging from Rs. one lakh to 10 lakh or more,he said.
The money invested by the victims was dumped into different bank accounts through online payments.
However,after completing the investment process, when the victim tried to withdraw the amount,they never got any refund,he added.
Once the amount was collected,the accused diverted the consolidated money to mule accounts (related to money laundering),the officer said.
The total amount of Rs.854 crore was dumped into various online payment modes through crypto (Binance),payment gateway,gaming apps among others,he said.
