Hyderabad: TGCSB busts fake online stock trading gang; 3 held for cheating senior citizen of Rs 13.16 Cr

Hyderabad: Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) busted a fake online stock trading gang and arrested three men for cheating a senior citizen in Hyderabad.

Police also seized three mobile phones from their possession.

The accused have been identified as Sayed Khaja Hashim Uddin, Arafat Khaled Mohinuddin, both students, and Mohd Atheer Pasha, a private employee in metro rail. All of them are natives of Hyderabad.

The trio along with a few other fraudsters had duped a senior citizen of Rs 13.16 crore assuring high profits on investments in online trading.

Brief facts of the case:

TGCSB director Shikha Goel said that on September 2, they received a complaint from a senior citizen stating that he received Whatsapp messages from one Ravi Pavagi (WhatsApp No: +919482309640) to join in online stock broking and shared a link to join a WhatsApp group.

After joining that group, assistants of three companies i.e., AFSL, UPSTOX, and International Brokers(IB), contacted him through WhatsApp groups regarding stocks trading in various platforms and shared several website URLs, App links, WhatsApp group links, and Bank accounts to invest in.

The senior citizen invested in three groups believing the words of the assistants of the said companies who contacted him. Initially, he was allowed to withdraw a few profits of lesser amounts to gain his confidence. After that, he believed them and invested huge sums in each company expecting high profits.

Each company followed the same method and showed his investments doubled over their website and didn’t allow him to withdraw amounts requesting to invest more. After investing an amount of Rs.13.16 crore the complainant realized that it was a fraud and filed a complaint, the TGCSB director said.

Modus Operandi:

Shikha Goel said that in this case part of the amount transferred by the victim reached the mule account of Pasha. Khaja and Khaled approached Pasha and convinced him to use his account as a mule account in the cyber frauds.

Khaja and Khaled were running an illegal crypto business. They are buying crypto i.e., USDT from the Binance platform and selling the same illegally in angelx.com to get more profits. After purchasing the USDT they sell the same in Angelx.com at high profits.

The main fraudsters transfer money into the bank account of Pasha, who withdraws the money and with the help of Khaja and Khaled, the money would be converted into USDT and sent to the main fraudsters through angelx.com, she said.

Public Appeal:

The TGCSB urges the public to stay vigilant and not to supply bank accounts to known/unknown persons for the sake of temporary commission. While making crypto transactions, they shall not be involved in illegal trading through non-reputed crypto websites/exchanges.

The public could report any suspicious activity, particularly involving individuals seeking to use their bank accounts for depositing foreign funds. Fraudsters often lure account holders into these schemes by offering commissions, leading to the misuse of their identities for illegal activities.