Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell unit has arrested 11 men, including two charted accountants, for allegedly cheating more than five lakh people of over `150 crore in two months on the pretext of lucrative returns on Power Bank App. The app projected itself as a Bengaluru-based start-up, but its server was found based in China.
Police said that a total of `11 crore of cheated money has been blocked in various bank accounts and payment gateways.
According to Anyesh Roy, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Cyber Cell unit (CyPAD), police took notice of various posts being made on social media by people from across the country about two mobile applications Power Bank and EZPlan.
“Police invested a token amount in the app and the money trail was followed. It was found that the accused persons had created a web of around 25 shell companies for routing the fraud money. These companies were located in different parts of the country and money was being moved from one account to another to hide the trail,” said the DCP.
“Police analysed the mobile numbers connected with the bank accounts and found that one of the accused, Sheikh Robin, was in Uluberia, West Bengal. On June 2, raids were conducted at multiple locations. Robin was arrested. At the same time, nine others were arrested from the Delhi-NCR, including two Chartered Accountants (CAs) - Avik Kedia, a resident of Gurugram, and Ronak Bansal, a resident of Katwaria Sarai,” the DCP said.
“The CAs created over 110 shell companies and sold these companies to Chinese nationals for `2 to three lakh each.
Robin, who was contacted by the Chinese national through Telegram, initially opened a bank account for these fraudsters, but later started acting as an operative whose primary task was to manage the large number of fund transfers,” said the DCP adding that at the time of the arrest, he was operating around 29 bank accounts.
“The main Chinese handlers behind this massive scam, used to randomly contact people over various apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram and hired the interested persons as partners for procuring bogus bank accounts, creating shell companies, circulating and promoting the apps, transferring money, etc,” said the DCP.
“These apps offered lucrative returns on investment. The apps, in order to entice large numbers of people to invest more and more money, initially gave a small payout amounting to 5 to 10 per cent of the invested money,” said the DCP.
“People, believing the scheme to be genuine, started investing more money as well as circulating and sharing the app with their friends and relatives,” said the DCP
Names of several Chinese nationals have been revealed so far. Investigation in respect of their whereabouts, specific roles and their large fraud network is underway, police added.