Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The special task force (STF) has unearthed around 145 bank accounts which were being used by fraudsters to stash and rotate money generated from investment frauds and cybercrimes, including digital arrest.
Ongoing investigations into a major forex trade investment fraud racket (having international links) which was busted by the special task force (MPSTF) some months back, led the sleuths to the above 145 bank accounts across the country – being held and operated by at least ten companies registered in different parts of India.
Transactions worth a whopping ₹ 3200 crore were detected in these 145 accounts over the last eight-nine month period, out of which around
₹ 180 crore have been frozen/put on hold. Continued investigations into the accounts led to another startling revelation – at least 14 of those accounts having been used by cyber fraudsters to park proceeds of their crime.
DG Pankaj Srivastava said, ‘262 complaints with various state police agencies and the MHA’s I4C pertain to cybercrimes involving around Rs 68 crore. A significant sum out of this was stashed and routed through bank accounts held by the ten companies registered in India.
Two of these companies are under our scanner in connection with forex trade investment fraud racket case.’ Seven FIRs have already been registered in multiple states including Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Assam.
Out of 262 complaints, 91 related to investment fraud
SP Naveen Choudhary told Free Press that out of 262 complaints received particularly by MHA’s I4C, 91 pertain to investment frauds, 75 related to share market investment/trading, 37 UPI fraud complaints, 11 job fraud complaints and six pertaining to digital arrests.
A large network of fraudsters makes people from MP and other states invest huge sums in forex trading with the promise of returns ranging from 72% to 90%.
High-profile companies running from one or two rooms
Officials informed that two companies accounts in which investors deposited money to get benefits of BoTBro and Meta 5 Trading App-based forex trading, have their corporate offices on a single floor in Noida.
Their related offices in Haryana are operated from two rooms but transactions of Rs 300 crore was done in just nine months and transactions of Rs 30 crore was done in Odisha in the same period.
