Mumbai Police's North Region Cyber police station arrested a 27-year-old man, with a BE mechanical degree, from Aurangabad in connection with cyber fraud. Recently cyber fraudsters had duped a YouTube channel company to the tune of ₹23.5 lakh, during the investigation it was revealed that the money was transferred to the account of the accused. The arrest was made on May 5 and further probe is underway.
A film producer, who is one of the partners in F3 First Frame Films Pvt Ltd, also owns a YouTube channel to publish videos related to their line of work. The channel also ties up with advertisements, which earns them money via Google Adsense every month, which is eventually deposited in a bank account associated with Google Adsense by 24th of every month after a prior intimation on an email.
When the complainant received three emails from Google Adsense intimating about account number updated, he realised that an unknown person has changed the beneficiary account number and received $31,230.70, equivalent to ₹23.5 lakh by cheating on April 23. The producer then immediately approached North Region Cyber Cell and lodged a complaint the next day.
During the probe, police traced that the account number that was inserted in the Google Adsense account belonged to a 27-year-old man from Aurangabad and his account was freezed. Furthermore, police arrested the accused, identified as Lalit Devkar, who had completed his Bachelors in Electronic with MTech on May 5, and brought him to Mumbai.
Police said that Devkar claimed he was approached by a Vietnamese national through Skype and posed as a YouTube channel trader. When Devkar showed interest, he was asked to give his account number. Police, however, said that Devkar had transferred some amount to other accounts and police have freezed over 80 percent of the money.
As of now, the police are trying to ascertain how did Devkar manage to change the account number in Google Adsense and pull off the cheating.