Noida, Feb 26 (PTI) Police have arrested two youths who allegedly committed cyber frauds through gaming and trading applications and digital arrest, officials said on Wednesday.
According to police, the accused would use ‘mule accounts’ to convert the stolen money to USDT and cryptocurrency and then divide it among themselves through hawala network.
The accused, Harsh Vardhan (28) and Rohan Agrawal, were part of a gang including some Chinese nationals, police said.
Raj Kumar Mishra, Additional Superintendent of Police, STF, Noida said, “Two accused of cyber fraud, who used extort money from their victims through ‘digital arrest’ and asked them to deposit money through gaming or trading app have been arrested by STF, Noida from Greater Noida on Tuesday.” The STF unit has recovered debit and credit cards, Aadhaar card, pan card, driving license, passport, mobile phones and Rs 4 lakh cash.
During interrogation, Rohan told police that he had met a person named Amir in Kanpur while betting. Amir provides a mule account to Chinese nationals on a commission basis. After learning from Amir, Rohan came in contact with Chinese handlers through the Telegram mobile application and began providing mule accounts to them on a commission basis.
“The arrested cyber criminals used to carry out cyber crimes by connecting bank accounts through APIs and siphoning off the stolen money into those accounts. The members are spread across the nation and get details of account holders from companies or current account holders on a commission basis. While staying in hotels they login into such accounts and provide them to cyber criminals located in other countries through API tools,” he added.
The arrested accused further revealed that they used to put mobile numbers which are registered with the bank accounts and install Chinese Dragon message app. With the help of the app, cyber criminals sitting abroad can see the OTP of the banking transactions of the mobile number. They would connect API tools for automatic fund transfer, police said.
The accused Rohan further informed that since November 2024, so far Rs 3.49 crore has been transferred by a Chinese handler through USDT. Rohan added that USDT amount is converted through Hawala into cash and that is divided amongst the members of the gang. PTI COR HIG HIG
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