Mumbai: Two men were arrested by Dahisar police in connection with a scam where a 35-year-old woman was duped online by fraudsters posing as Lucknow Crime Branch officers. One of the accused, Varunkumar Tiwari, 24, was operating the bank account into which the complainant was defrauded into transferring her money. Further, police found that Tiwari, along with his associate, Sachin Mishra, 32, opened 10 accounts in the names of various individuals with the same bank.
On Nov 28, the complainant received a phone call from men posing as Lucknow Crime Branch officers. They convinced her that her SIM card was used for cheating people and that she would be arrested. They got her to transfer nearly Rs 89,000 to a bank account “to avoid arrest”. The woman did as instructed and later realised that she was duped.
After she lodged a police complaint, officers got in touch with the bank and froze the accused’s bank account. During the investigation, police found the involvement of Tiwari and Mishra, both Mira Road residents. The duo was arrested.
It was further discovered that two of the bank accounts operated by Tiwari and Mishra were connected with 63 cyber fraud offences across India. The offences belong to a range of states including Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. The two accused and their associates opened bank accounts in the names of various enterprises. They were found to be using several mobile numbers, email IDs, and UPI IDs, police said.
