The Cyber Crime Unit has arrested Parth Sanjay Gopani (22), the mastermind behind a large-scale online fraud racket, at Lucknow airport. Authorities seized a mobile phone worth Rs 70,000 from him. Gopani, originally from Chogadh village, Bhavnagar, had traveled from Nepal and was planning to flee to Bangkok by flight.
Earlier, police had apprehended several of his accomplices, including Ramesh Chana Katariya, Umesh Karshan Jijala, Naresh Himat Surani, Rajesh Arjan Dihora, and Gaurang Harsukh Rakholiya.
The gang targeted victims by posing as CBI, ED, and Mumbai police officers. In one case, they extorted Rs 1.25 crore from a 90-year-old father of a merchant at Parle Point through a digital arrest scam. Gopani had been running the operation from Cambodia in coordination with a Chinese gang that operated a call center. He collected commissions and transferred them to the gang in USDT. Bank records on the National Cyber Crime portal show 173 complaints across 14 states connected to his accounts.
In another unrelated case, two brothers from Delhi, Amit Vidyanand Thakur (28) and Sumit Thakur, were arrested for a Rs 98.85 lakh insurance fraud. Claiming to be insurance officials, they obtained policies in the victims’ and their family members’ names and siphoned funds through bank transfers.
Meanwhile, in Ahmedabad, Krunalsinh Mansinh Sisodiya (21) was apprehended for digitally arresting a senior citizen for a week and extorting Rs 22 lakh. He had rented his bank account to another accomplice, Jignesh Shah, and received Rs 10,000 for facilitating the transfer of Rs 10 lakh. Sisodiya, originally from Udaipur, works in a mobile phone shop and has completed schooling up to the 12th standard.
The Cyber Crime Unit continues to investigate these cases, aiming to dismantle the entire network involved in digital extortion and fraud.
