A gang of cyber criminals who cheated people by opening bank accounts in the name of people has been busted in Guwahati, Assam. The scam is worth more than Rs 22,000 crore. The brokers had committed fraud in the online stock market by claiming to double people’s money. The police have arrested four people in this case so far. Vishal Phukan, a 22-year-old online trader from Dibrugarh and Swapnil Das from Guwahati have been arrested by the Assam Police. This gang is expected to be spread across the state. And the police are conducting raids to arrest the fraudsters.
Police said Phukan lured people with his luxurious lifestyle and promised his investors a 30% return on their investment in 60 days. He had formed four fake companies and invested in the Assamese film industry and acquired several properties.
“Earlier this year, a Guwahati resident had lodged a complaint claiming that an acquaintance had opened a bank account for him but he had not received the cheque book and passbook even after several months,” Guwahati Police Commissioner Diganta Barah said.
He said that during the investigation of the case, four people were arrested, mainly agents of the gang, and various items were seized from a rented flat in Hatigaon area of ​​the city. He said that the items seized included 44 cheque books, 12 bank passbooks, 49 ATM cards, seven foreign currency notes of UAE and Thailand, seven UPI scanners and one international driving permit.
Barah said cybercriminal gangs require multiple bank accounts to transact the money earned by duping citizens through various scams over telephone or internet. “These gangs do not use their own bank accounts as this would give clues to the investigating agencies, which would lead to the cyber criminals,” he said.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma urged people to avoid fraudulent investments in the online stock market, saying claims of doubling money with minimal effort are usually fraudulent. “I want to tell people that there is no such system of investing money in the stock market through these online trading firms. Fraudsters are misleading people. I urge people to stay away from fraudsters. Police have now registered cases against illegal brokers. We will try to bust the entire racket in the state,” he said.