New Delhi: In October last year, Delhi-based Pankaj Verma was scrolling through Facebook for stock market ideas and evaluations. A Telegram link (SAYING WHAT) with the user name ‘Mamta Rawat’ caught his eye.
Wanting to understand how it works, Verma joined the Telegram channel and was invited to join a WhatsApp group that had five VIP admins under the impersonations of different individuals.
It started with an initial investment of Rs 20,000 after he interacted with the scammers and continued till January. Little did Verma realise that he was now a prey for the scamsters waiting to rob him of his hard-earned money.
What followed was Verma being tricked into increasing his capital investment in the stocks and even asked to take up loans. The scamsters also manipulated him to participate in bulk share buying, IPO subscription. Over Rs 29 lakh was syphoned off in the process.
Pankaj Verma isn’t alone. In July, a Pune IT professional was duped of Rs 96 lakh after he was promised “1000 percent” return through investments in the stock market.
Last month, Kumar Italiya was arrested after he landed in Surat from Dubai. Italiya and his aides are accused of duping a Mumbai-based contractor of Rs 1.24 crore. The Surat man, a probe revealed, is involved in over 60 such cyber fraud cases.
In May, the Intelligence Fusion Strategic Operations (cyber unit of the Delhi Police) unearthed another racket by arresting nine people for allegedly duping people on the pretext of high returns on stock trading through a bogus app — ‘CHE-SES’.
All of the nine arrested, including a woman, are accused of procuring mule accounts for bogus firms and also dealing in the mule bank accounts. The accused also had two offices in Delhi.
The accused allegedly opened 400 such bank accounts linked to shell companies and duping people of at least Rs 4 crore. Sources in investigating agencies said that the masterminds and the main call centre are suspected to be Dubai based and a probe has revealed a Singapore China link. No recoveries were made in case too as the money was converted into crypto.
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Sophisticated operations
Scamsters operate through ads on Telegram and Facebook linking to WhatsApp groups and other social media sites, luring people in the pretext of providing tutorials, providing initial returns and promising of exorbitantly high returns. That’s for gaining the trust of unsuspecting victims.
These stock market frauds operate like almost every other sophisticated and well-oiled scams, and are controlled by kingpins sitting mostly in Cambodia and some others in Dubai, according to investigating agencies.
The baits for these high returns are put up through ads across all social media platforms and the cheats equipped with mobile phones and computers answer the basic questions enough to impress the victims. The initial returns are given from the amounts recovered from other victims.
“Most people don’t understand the stock market and the use of big known company and firm names makes them believe it to be genuine. Facebook and other social media apps are filled with such ads that lead people to fall prey to these scams. There is no regulation or monitoring at any level,” a Mumbai Police source said.
Unlike the usual KYC frauds, the OLX scams involve fly-by-night operators running on quick money stolen from victims. These scams are well-oiled with the swindlers manipulating and looting the victims over a period that lasts longer than six months.
The investigation mostly hit a dead end for Indian probe agencies as the people who end up falling into the net are the brokers and the mule account holders.
Sitting mostly outside the country, call centres in Cambodia and Dubai have Indians working for them, and people from other South Asian countries working round-the-clock to trap people, attribution plz.
Cambodia has been in the news for at least the last two years for being a billion dollar cyber scam industry run by the Chinese. Multiple Indians have been rescued from the country who were forced to become ‘cyber slaves’ and target people back home via digital scams such as sextortion, stock market scams among several others.
These hubs house hostel-like rooms for the workers, AI rooms, ‘punishment rooms’ for rebels and offices that host the callers. However, according to police sources, some of these Indians are also well-aware of the kind of work they will be able to do and the incentives lure them to work in these call centres.
“Most of the IP addresses show that the kingpins are in Cambodia. In some cases, the call centres are also Dubai-based,” a Mumbai police officer said.
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Mule accounts & virtual numbers
In Verma’s case, the Delhi Police filed a 116-page chargesheet and Prem, a resident of Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, was booked for cheating, cheating by impersonation and criminal conspiracy under IPC.
While Prem is accused of having got the bank account opened in the name of Jitender Singh, a resident of Aligarh, the police asked the latter to join the investigation through summons.
Singh’s account was allegedly being used to transfer the swindled money. Prem, who was found to be in judicial custody in another fraud case, was again booked by the Delhi Police’s Northeast district. The investigation is still on to find the masterminds behind the scam. Till now, a probe has revealed that the racketeers looted at least two victims amounting to over Rs 34 lakh.
“Fraudsters alluded the victim to invest in online share market trading on the instructions of share market ideas circulated on WhatsApp and Telegram groups. After that, they lured the victim to start investments through their Sequoia Capital Mobile Application provided by WhatsApp and Telegram groups. The cheated money was credited to different mule bank accounts,” Deputy Commissioner of Police, Northeast, Joy Tirkey said.
Often opened by individuals for a fee, mule bank accounts facilitate illegal transactions involving funds from unlawful activities.
“The accused persons regularly change their mobile numbers, locations, office address on which they opened alleged corporate bank accounts to evade their arrest,” the DCP said.
Recoveries are also a task in such cases as most of the money is converted into crypto and syphoned off overseas. “It is comparatively easier to find the bank account holders and the dealers. However, the probe hits a dead end after crypto tokens are involved,” a source in the Delhi Police said.
Moreover, according to the Delhi Police sources, in most cases, the mule account holders also are unaware about the identity of the dealers. “Sometimes, the mule account holders are found to have spoken to the dealers on phone through virtual hidden numbers and have no idea where the dealer is from,” the Delhi Police source said.
Scammed for months
“Mamta Rawat shared that the group is run by PEAK XV Capital ventures formerly Sequoia Capital and she also shared the company website of Peak XV Capital when I doubted it. In the group initially they are sharing market ideas and views on holding stocks and they always mentioned that my stocks are in downtrend and it is better to sell these stocks (sic),” the FIR in Verma’s case reads.
Verma was also allegedly threatened and blackmailed when he wanted to back out due to the increasing demand for investments on the pretext that all his funds would be frozen if he doesn’t pay more and doesn’t subscribe to the IPO. He coughed up over Rs 10 lakh in cash as penalty for not subscribing to the IPO and was told that if he doesn’t pay up, his funds will be frozen. A deadline of 10 January was set for him.
By that time, Verma had started looking for Sequoia Capital on LinkedIn and other social media sites. It is then that he realised that the firm doesn’t operate on WhatsApp and has no such operations running through any app.
When he contacted Sequoia Capital in January, the staff there suggested the Delhi resident to lodge a police complaint against the scamsters for cheating, impersonation, and conspiracy. The Delhi Police then took over the probe.
(Edited by Tony Rai)