Four individuals were arrested in Southwest Delhi for allegedly scamming a man out of ₹19 lakh by pretending to be officers from the Mumbai Financial Task Force, according to Delhi Police.
The incident began on January 31 when Devansh Aggrawal reported a suspicious call. A person claiming to be a FedEx representative informed him that a package under his name was seized, containing 5 kg of cloth, 10 expired passports, 25 Indian SIM cards, 6 ICICI credit cards, and 950 grams of MDMA. The call was then transferred to someone posing as a Mumbai Police official, who advised Devansh to file an online complaint through Skype.
An individual, pretending to be an officer from the Mumbai Financial Task Force, joined the Skype call. He requested access to Devansh’s bank account details to investigate potential money laundering. After obtaining the internet banking credentials, the fraudsters took out a pre-approved loan of ₹19,94,101 from Devansh’s account, said DCP (Southwest) Surendra Chaudhary.
Investigators traced the money to an AU Bank account in the name of “Nivik Services,” based in Vikhroli, Mumbai. The account was registered to Dharmendra Kumar, 32, a resident of Peepli.
The investigation revealed that the bank account was operated from Rajasthan’s Hiyaliya village. On September 29, police arrested Mukesh Vaishnav from Ajmer. According to the police, Mukesh was part of a group that recruited unemployed youths from Rajasthan and set up fake companies like Nivik Services in Pune and Mumbai, using them to open current accounts for fraudulent purposes.
Following Mukesh’s arrest, Dinesh Kumar, 21, from Jalore, Rajasthan, was apprehended on October 2. Dinesh managed multiple mule accounts set up by Mukesh and sold them to fraudsters in South Asia. The scammers used these accounts to deceive victims through various digital methods, police said.
Based on Dinesh’s information, two more suspects, Dharmendra Kumar and Deepak Chauhan, were arrested on October 11. Authorities discovered that most of the defrauded money was converted into cryptocurrency.
Police investigations also revealed that Dharmendra’s account had transactions worth ₹1.62 crore even before the latest scam. DCP Chaudhary urged people to be cautious and avoid sharing bank details over the phone, even if the caller claims to be from the police. In such cases, individuals should visit the nearest police station to report suspicious activity.
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