MADURAI: Wonder why most victims of cyber frauds don’t get back their money? Tamil Nadu police, who arrested three young men from a rented house in Madurai, may have new answers.
The Madurai gang was found to have handled nearly Rs 1.6 crore in a year, said a police officer. The arrested are Habib Mohamed, 21 of Pudukkottai, Mohamed Mubarak, 23, of Ramanathapuram, and Faraz Khan, 23. Police seized 26 bank passbooks, 18 cellphones, 77 ATM cards, 18 cheque books and 60 SIM cards from them.
“Money lost by victims in cyber scams, including digital-arrest frauds and bogus online trading schemes, was credited to these hired accounts.
The trio would quickly withdraw the money through ATMs and take the cash to agents who had helped create P2P IDs,” the sub-inspector of police said. Police said these receiving IDs were usually operated from Southeast Asian countries, after which the money was moved further through the cybercrime network. Cybercrime officers said this commission-based intermediary model is especially visible in Ramanathapuram and is increasingly drawing youngsters elsewhere in southern Tamil Nadu seeking quick returns.
They then transferred the digital dollar balance to other P2P IDs on the same app, following instructions from mediators who had brought them into the network.
“They made a commission of Rs 6,300 for every Rs 1 lakh they got,” said a police officer. “We suspect they made about Rs 10 lakh.”