Two men, Rakesh Singh (26) from Ghazipur and Sachin Sangwan (25) from Patparganj, were arrested for allegedly defrauding a man of Rs 4.95 lakh. The accused, already in judicial custody at Tihar jail for a 2023 cyber fraud case, were apprehended by the Delhi Police on September 17. Both are now in police custody at the South West Cyber police station.
According to the police, the victim, Saurabh Pillay (45), a Vasant Kunj resident, was deceived through a carefully orchestrated scam. On March 28, 2023, Pillay received a call from someone posing as a FedEx agent, claiming that a suspicious package addressed to him had been intercepted in Toronto. The package was said to contain a SIM card, ATM card, and passport. When Pillay denied any knowledge of the package, the caller transferred him to a number allegedly belonging to Colaba police station.
From there, the scam escalated. The new callers, pretending to be Crime Branch officials, informed Pillay that he was in serious trouble and an arrest warrant had been issued against him. To avoid arrest and further legal issues, they connected him to a lawyer who demanded Rs 2 lakh and an additional Rs 2.95 lakh. The money was claimed to be for priority investigation, anticipatory bail, and an “innocence certificate.”
Once Pillay transferred the sum, the lawyer vanished, and his calls went unanswered. Investigations revealed that the money had been funneled through a Mumbai resident’s bank account before being transferred to Rakesh Singh’s account. Further tracking uncovered that Sangwan, a BTech graduate, used various company accounts to launder the stolen funds. He would withdraw cash from Singh’s account and then re-deposit it in another account, converting it into cryptocurrency via peer-to-peer transactions on Binance, effectively covering the money trail.
The police had been tracking the duo for a long time and successfully arrested them after their digital footprint exposed their involvement in this elaborate scam.