1 week Ago By Gitesh Shelke
1 2 Pune: The cyber police on Monday claimed to have busted a racket behind online share trading frauds following the arrest of six people, including the director and a technical officer, both BTech graduates, of a Hingoli-based multi-state cooperative bank. The arrests were made between March 27 and April 5 this year. "Apart from Hingoli, where the cooperative bank is registered, it has a branch at Kharadi with close to 300 account holders.
We are verifying the number of account holders and the business of the bank's main office in Hingoli and the number of accounts in Hingoli and Kharadi branches that may have been used as mule accounts to facilitate money transactions," senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of Pune Cyber Police told TOI. Shinde said, "The bank director (22), who has been arrested, and the technical officer would scout for account holders and convince them to let their accounts be used for money transactions in exchange for commission. The two also floated three digital marketing companies and both dealt in cryptocurrencies.
" "Another arrested suspect, hailing from Dharavi in Mumbai and currently residing at Charholi, would invest money generated from the commission he received from the two main suspects, in cryptocurrencies and transfer these digital currencies to his handlers in Dubai," she said. Investigations revealed that the suspects used 100 to 150 accounts of the cooperative bank and other banks and multiple cellphone numbers to execute the frauds. Information available on the National Cyber Portal indicated their involvement in 29 such share trading frauds across multiple states, police said.
Police identified the arrested bank director as Govind Sanjay Suryavanshi and technical officer as Rohit Sushil Kambhoj (32), both residents of Wagholi. Other arrested are Ketan Umesh Bhiware (27) of Kharadi, Nikhil alias Kishor Satav (32) and Babarao alias Omkar Bhawar (22), both from Wagholi, and Jabbarsingh Arjunsingh Purohit (45) of Dharavi. Police are also investigating their connections with people in Gujarat and West Bengal.
Satav and Purohit are in police custody while the remaining four are lodged in jail under judicial custody, Shinde said. "Satav and Bhiware are cousins, while Bhawar and Suryavanshi are also cousins. Suryavanshi and Kambhoj rented the space at Kharadi from where the bank operates its branch," the officer added.
The breakthrough came during the investigation of a Rs1.60 crore share trading fraud committed on a senior citizen from Erandwane in March. Police came across a withdrawal of Rs5.
82 lakh by cheque from one of the accounts they were monitoring and found that the same was held by Bhiware. Police took him into custody. During questioning, Bhiware told them that his cousin, Satav, created several accounts in the duo and their friends' names.
While Satav was on the run, the police investigated bank account details and cell phone numbers to identify the roles of Govind Suryavanshi and Rohit Kambhoj. The two were taken into custody and their questioning led the police to Bhawar and subsequently to Purohit. Purohit claimed that he is a businessman and deals in cryptocurrencies but was evasive in his replies during questioning.
However, it was established that a part of the Rs1.60 crore fraud money was transferred by Purohit into Bhiware's account in exchange for cryptocurrencies held by Suryavanshi and Kambhoj. "Purohit's role was to effect cheque withdrawals from mule accounts and hand over the money to Suryavanshi and Kambhoj in exchange for commission, which he would further invest in cryptocurrencies," Shinde said.
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