In a major breakthrough, the Tamil Nadu Cyber Crime Branch Police arrested Nitish Kumar, Chandrashekhar, and Suresh on Thursday for allegedly defrauding a man of Rs 92 lakh through a fake online trading scheme. The fraudsters were arrested following a complaint from the victim, who had been lured by an advertisement on Facebook promising high profits through online trading.
The victim, trusting the advertised scheme, made multiple transfers to accounts provided by the suspects. However, after failing to receive the promised returns, he realized he had been scammed and filed a complaint with the Madurai Cyber Crime Branch Police.
The police investigation revealed that the fraudsters had opened an account under the name ‘Murugan Traders’, with Nitish Kumar listed as the proprietor. The suspects processed transactions of up to Rs 1 crore and received hefty commissions for each one.
During the arrest, the police recovered several SIM cards, bank passbooks, and ATM cards from the suspects. The investigation also uncovered that Rs 3 crore worth of fraudulent transactions had been processed through accounts linked to the suspects.
The suspects, identified as Nitish Kumar from Namakkal, Chandrashekhar from Namakkal, and Suresh from Coimbatore, had been involved in similar criminal activities across multiple states including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Nagaland, and Odisha.
The cybercrime team, led by Sub Inspector Priya Senthilkumar, tracked down the suspects in Namakkal and made the arrests. The suspects were operating fraudulent schemes across a wide geographical area, defrauding victims through fake trading platforms and offering lucrative investment opportunities.
In a related incident, Madurai District Cyber Crime Police recently arrested three individuals—K. Vadivelu, E. Jayaraman, and K. Ramalingam—for defrauding a Madurai resident of Rs 1.32 crore with a similar scam. The fraudsters promised a part-time job to the victim, leading him to transfer large sums of money.
The police investigation revealed that the suspects had used an IndusInd Bank account to facilitate the fraudulent transactions. The authorities seized mobile phones, laptops, SIM cards, bank passbooks, and ATM cards from the suspects and froze an account containing approximately Rs 2.18 crore. They had also carried out similar frauds in states like Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tripura, Telangana, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh.
