GURGAON: After managing to get back Rs 1.3 crore lost by a retired air force officer to an online fraud, police said on Sunday they have recovered Rs 71 lakh that a senior HR executive was cheated out of by cyber fraudsters.
Cops also arrested three men from Jaipur last month in connection with the case.
Sanjay Jain (56), a resident of Sector 47, filed a complaint on Feb 16, alleging that he lost Rs 1 crore to cyber cons.
In his complaint, Jain said he came across an investment link shared by cyber cons who posed as representatives of a reputed financial services firm in Dec 2023. They added him to a WhatsApp group, on which they would post recommendations for investing in stocks. They then asked him to download an app and invest in stocks through that to get higher returns.
Between Jan and Feb, Jain said he invested over Rs 1 crore.
“The app showed handsome returns for my investments in stocks and they had given a special offer to buy stocks worth three times more than what’s there in my virtual account. Believing that, I transferred Rs 1.05 crore into different bank accounts specified by them till Feb 6,” he said.
Afterwards, Jain said, he tried to withdraw his money but his account was locked.
Police registered a case under sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, along with provisions of the I-T Act.
Investigators said they followed the money trail and arrested three men — Makwana Harshad Ramesh and Nikunj Mansukh Chauhan, both of Porbandar, and Khan Zuber Jamshed of Valsad in Gujarat. All three of them were arrested in Jaipur on March 22.
ACP (cybercrime) Priyanshu Dewan said that Rs 54 lakh of the amount Jain had paid was transferred to a bank account owned by Ramesh.
Ramesh and the two others had agreed to provide their bank accounts to fraudsters operating from Dubai in return for a commission, the ACP added.
Inspector Savit Kumar said cops recovered a total of Rs 71 lakh that was transferred to eight accounts across states.
“We are trying to locate and recover the remaining amount also. If victims report quickly about cyber frauds on the national toll-free number 1930, there is a high chance of recovery,” Kumar said.
Earlier in the week, Gurgaon police recovered Rs 1.3 crore lost by an 82-year-old retired IAF officer to cyber cons in Feb this year. They arrested seven suspects allegedly involved in the plot, including two sales officers of Yes Bank in Delhi’s Rohini. The staffers had allegedly helped one of the coordinators get access to bank accounts.
