FPJ Cyber Secure: Police Crack Down On Instagram Job Scam, Return ₹80,000 To Chembur Designer

The police have partially busted a syndicate behind task-based cyber frauds and returned Rs80,000 to a 21-year-old interior designer from Chembur, Bhavya Goyal, who lost Rs97,000 the amount in December 2023. 

Details of fraud

Cyber fraudsters had offered Goyal on Instagram a commission-based part-time job. As part of the deal, she had deposited money into different bank accounts, one of them being traced to Palghar, said senior police inspector Yusuf Saudagar from Nehru Nagar police station where she had lodged a complaint in early January. 

Saudagar said that a team was formed to look into the bank account and to trace the account holder, later identified as Sushant Madhav Sonar, 53, and found hospitalised and bedridden. 

The breakthrough in the case came because Goyal registered an online complaint at the National Cyber Crime portal and also called helpline number 1930. “The nodal officer at the portal contacts the bank through which the transactions took place, and freezes the amount. In this case, almost Rs80,000 was held over in the bank account, which the accused couldn’t transfer or withdraw,” explained investigating officer Suryagandh. 

Further probe revealed that Sonar worked for Mohammad Yusuf Bora, 53, a resident of Virar, who had been lured with transaction-based commission to open the bank account. Sonar, however, sold the account further to a Gujarat-based person, who allegedly is also the mastermind of the fraud.

“Both knew that the account was being used for fraud but didn’t report it as they were getting benefits,” said Suryagandh, adding that a probe into the third person’s activities and location is underway.