New Delhi, Jan 27 (IANS): Four men involved in supplying and managing bank accounts of the cyber fraudsters were nabbed after a massive hunt in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh (UP), an official said on Saturday.

He said that money trail of 60 lakh have been unearthed so far and the syndicate had links with Chinese nationals.

The accused were identified as Harish Kumar, Vipul Sharma, Shiv Pratap and Om Prakash a.k.a Monu.

Their arrest came after a complaint was received by police on August 12, 2023, in which the complainant Ashish Kumar Tomer -- a resident of west Delhi alleged that on August 9, 2023 -- he was approached by some fraudster through WhatsApp, claiming to be Anitai from Career Builder ltd. India.

She offered him to earn money by rating restaurants on Google. The complainant accepted the offer.

“On August 11, the complainant was added to a Telegram group and he was assigned tasks to rate restaurants on Google Map. After completion of tasks, he was paid some money and then was asked to invest Rs 1,000 to get Rs 1,300. One account i.e. www.yt6ba.top was made for him in the name of Sony Corp platform and he was asked to invest for business,” said the Deputy Commissioner of Police (southwest) Rohit Meena.

Tomar was also added by @david6687 to another group Task Force G305388. “Thereafter, he was asked to pay a huge amount for investment with assured returns. The complainant got trapped and transferred Rs 23,23,260 for good returns. When he tried to deny them and asked to return his money, the fraudsters told that he won’t be able to withdraw without more investment,” said the DCP.

During the investigation, the details of the beneficiary accounts were obtained and it revealed that the cheated amount was credited in ICICI Bank of Harish.

“Harish was arrested, who on interrogation disclosed that he came in contact with Vipul and sold his account for five percent commission basis. During further investigation, accused Vipul was also arrested who disclosed that he had joined many telegram groups for providing bank accounts to fraudsters,” said the DCP.

Vipul further disclosed that he came in contact with Om Prakash through Telegram who was an active member of telegram groups where bank accounts were being sold and purchased.

“Subsequently, another accused, Shiv and Om Prakash were also arrested in the said case. Om Prakash told police that he came in contact with two persons namely Vipul Sharma and Amit,” said the DCP.

The DCP said that Amit is running a big syndicate of providing fraud accounts and has links with the Chinese nationals who are operating the telegram fraud syndicate from abroad.