There were around 50 mule accounts where the money was transferred, a police inspector said and added that they had to coordinate with the banks concerned to block over 50 accounts to recover the money. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
In a rare case, the east division cybercrime police cracked an online investment racket and managed to recover ₹1.4 crore out of the total ₹1.53 crore which had been robbed from a software engineer couple at Banaswadi in March this year.
This is probably one of the most successful recoveries made by the city cybercrime police so far and it was made possible with persistent follow-up on the trail of money and with banks.
The accused, who were operating from the U.K. with hundreds of mule accounts taken on rent from labourers of north India, lured 44-year-old Neha (name changed) and 45-year-old Lokesh (name changed) through social media with the promise of quick and high return for investment and made Neha to transfer a total of ₹1.53 crore. They were even given access to a website to check the status and growth of their investment, the police said.
The couple were happy to find that their investment had grown and wanted to withdraw some amount after a few months, but they were denied access to the website and they were later blocked.
Following a complaint, a team of police, led by inspector Umesh Kumar, began to track down the money trail. There were around 50 mule accounts where the money was transferred, he said and added that the team had to coordinate with the banks concerned to block over 50 accounts to recover the money.
“For every cybercrime case, the investigating team follows three rules: trailing the money transaction and blocking the accounts, getting information from the complainant on time, and getting the complaint registered within the golden hour. In addition to this, coordination with bank officials and maintaining a rapport is a must to get the work done fast,” a police officer said.
“Out of over 600 cases registered in the east CEN police station so far this year, 45% are related to investment rackets. The CEN police team was also trained in previous cases and it has managed to crack 45 such cases this year and recover the maximum amount of money possible. The recovered money was handed over to the complainants after obtaining the court’s permission,” Mr. Umesh Kumar said.
DCP, east division, D. Devaraja, said that in July second week, the cybercrime team recovered a total of ₹61 lakh in two cases and returned the money to the victims after the due process.
A senior police officer supervising cybercrime cases said the biggest success in all cybercrime scams is the recovery of the maximum amount of money. “Arrest and conviction will rarely happen in the case as the kingpins of the racket operate from outside the country,” the officer added.
