Rourkela: Odisha Police arrested two interstate cyber crooks for their links with international scamming companies that allegedly duped people of over Rs 200 crore.
The Bureau of Immigration had detained two accused persons — Harish Kurapati alias Harry and Naga Venkata Sowjanya Kurapati alias Lisa — at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad, while the duo was returning from Cambodia. Odisha Police brought them to Rourkela for interrogation in connection with a cybercrime case lodged in December last year.
The two accused persons have been booked under sections 419/420/465/467/471/120B of IPC and 66C/66D of IT Act). They will be forwarded to a local court here today.
According to reports, The Rourkela police was investigating a case registered at the Cyber Police Station in Rourkela on December 30, 2023, following a complaint by a senior official in the central government regarding cyber fraud to the tune of Rs 67.70 lakh.
During the course of investigation, eight cyber fraudsters were arrested from different parts of the country in connection with various complaints from across India. As multiple people were allegedly involved in the massive cyber fraud case, the Rourkela Police had issued Look Out Circulars against 16 people. Pursuant to our Look Out Circulars, the Bureau of Immigration had apprehended Harry and Lisa in Hyderabad airport.
Notably, over 210 complaints from across India have been lodged. As per the data from JCCT Management Information System (JMIS) of 14C, Ministry of Home Affairs, the cases were majorly from Bihar. Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, NCT of Delhi, Kerala, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
Sharing modus operandi of the crime, the Rourkela Police said, “The accused persons first went to Cambodia through an Indian agent and joined a scamming company in Phnom Penh in April 2023. Targeting Indian male persons, the accused persons used to collect the profiles from various dating apps like Happn and chat with them posing as girls to dupe people. After some time, when the client started trusting the scamster, they convinced their targets to invest in cryptocurrency trading.
In October 2023, Harry and Lisa joined another cyber fraud company that also targeted Indian people for investment. They created a fake online application which was used to show Indian stock market fluctuations. The application was simulated in such a manner that the client would think he had invested in actual stocks but in fact, his money was routed to scamsters accounts. The accused persons, with their operatives stationed in Cambodia, called the Indian people and motivated them to invest in stocks and fake returns were shown on the online platform. After giving initial returns, the app stopped pay-out and subsequently fraud was conducted. To acquire more customers, Lisa had sent gifts to potential investors, who subsequently became victims.
During interrogation, the accused confessed that she had defrauded more than 30-40 people. In one case only she could be able to defraud a person of Rs 2 cr at one go.
The police revealed that owners of the scamming companies were Chinese nationals who employed Malaysian or Cambodian people as translators to communicate with others. People from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, India and Cambodia worked as agents. The agents recruited people from India for cyber fraud. Once they reach Cambodia, the hired people work for the scamsters. The scam companies take away their passports and instruct them to work 12 hours a day. If anyone refuses to work, the employee faces physical assault, solitary confinement and gets electric shock.
Many Indians hired by the scamsters for such scams are trapped there. The Rourkela Cyber Police is on efforts to identify them and bring them back to India through proper channels, the police stated in a release.
