On April 25, the West Region Cyber Police apprehended three individuals, including a BTech student, involved in a stock market fraud that cost a businessman Rs 15 lakh. The accused have been identified as Vipul Patne (28), a resident of Nagpur; Shivam Prasad (26), from Chhattisgarh; and Anmol Kumar Shahi (20), also from Chhattisgarh, who is a BTech student.
The police seized cheque books, ATM cards tied to 25 different bank accounts, 15 SIM cards, three mobile phones, along with Aadhaar and PAN cards. The authorities also recovered documents from the suspects linked to the fraud.
According to the police investigation, the trio defrauded victims by promising lucrative returns on investments in online stock trading. Vipul Patne was arrested first, and further probing revealed that Shivam Prasad and Anmol Kumar Shahi had assisted in opening several bank accounts used in the scam. The accused targeted individuals, offering them Rs 10,000 for opening savings accounts and up to Rs 15,000 for current accounts. They used these accounts to carry out the fraudulent transactions.
Jasbir Singh, a businessman, filed an FIR on April 5, claiming he was tricked into investing Rs 14.95 lakh in a fake stock market scheme. The accused provided Singh with a login ID and password to access a virtual trading account and instructed him to use a specially designed app for trading. Singh was then asked to transfer large sums of money into various bank accounts to buy shares, only to lose the entire amount in the scam.
