Two men from Maharashtra held for cyber fraud in Chennai

The Cyber Crime Wing of the Tambaram City Police said it has unearthed a major ‘digital arrest’ scam by arresting two key suspects.

According to the police, P.K. Chandran, a victim of the scam, received a WhatsApp call from a fraudster posing as an official, who falsely claimed that he owed ₹1 lakh in SBI credit card dues. Shortly after, another individual impersonating a representative from the Delhi Cyber Crime Unit informed him that a money laundering case had been filed against him. Under the pretext of verifying his credentials to avoid arrest, he was deceived into transferring a total of ₹2.25 crore to various bank accounts provided by the fraudsters.

Based on his complaint, a case was registered at the Cyber Crime Wing in CCB, Tambaram. A team led by an Inspector of Police arrested the accused, namely Srikanth Suresh Rao Gadekar and Naresh Kalyan Rao Shinde, both from Aurangabad, from a hotel there, with the assistance of the Maharashtra Police.

During the arrest, the team seized nine mobile phones, 16 ATM cards, seven SIM cards, five cheque books, and two rubber stamps. As much as ₹9.36 lakh have been frozen through five bank accounts of the accused and their family members for the purpose of the investigation.

After the arrest, they were produced before the 16th Judicial Magistrate, Aurangabad for a transit warrant. Later, they were remanded to judicial custody and ordered to remand till August 15 by the Judicial Magistrate, Tambaram, and sent to the Central Prison, Puzhal.