The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) has arrested two men, Abhinav Raj Singh Sengar and Mukesh Yadav, for allegedly defrauding an Almora-based businessman of Rs 1.36 crore in a sophisticated online fraud. The two men posed as fake bank officers from HDFC Securities and lured the victim into investing in initial public offerings (IPOs) with promises of huge profits.
The victim, a resident of Almora, filed a complaint in August, triggering an investigation by the Cyber Crime Police. Investigations revealed that the accused had used fraudulent tactics to convince their victims to download a fake trading app and invest large sums in IPOs. They promised enormous returns, which initially seemed to materialize—showing the victim a profit of about Rs 8 crore on the app’s dashboard.
However, when the victim tried to withdraw the profits, he found that he couldn’t access the funds. Alarmed, he lodged a complaint with the police, which led to the launch of an investigation. The STF, in collaboration with Cyber Crime Police, traced the flow of funds through several bank accounts. Notably, Rs 48.5 lakh was found transferred to the current account of a firm named Sengar Telecom, and further investigation revealed that the accused used fake IDs to register mobile numbers linked to these accounts.
A detailed investigation revealed that the accused, Abhinav Raj Singh Sengar and Mukesh Yadav, were masterminding the fraud, which had been operating under the guise of an investment scheme. The fraudsters had set up multiple fake bank accounts and used them to launder the defrauded money across various accounts.
Despite multiple raids across various locations, the accused evaded arrest by frequently changing their whereabouts. However, after a prolonged search, STF officers arrested both men in Kanpur.
SSP STF, Ayush Aggarwal, confirmed that the arrested duo had been involved in a larger network of online fraud. He revealed that nearly 34 complaints had been registered against the accounts of the accused across 11 states, including Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
Aggarwal explained that the accused had used the bank accounts of their firm, Sengar Telecom, to perpetrate the cyber fraud and transferred the defrauded money to various accounts across the country. The STF is continuing to investigate the case, and further arrests are expected as the scale of the operation unfolds.
