Bhubaneswar, Feb 2 The Crime Branch of the Odisha Police has arrested a man from Bhubaneswar in connection with a Rs 6 crore investment fraud case, a senior police official said on Monday.
The accused cyber criminal, identified as Vedgiri Srinivasrao, 39, is a resident of the Guntur area in Andhra Pradesh.
Police sources revealed that a businessman from Berhampur in Ganjam district came into contact with an unidentified cyber fraudster on the popular social media platform Facebook on May 7, 2024. The fraudster identified herself as a Software developer with IBM, Hong Kong. She then persuaded the victim businessman to communicate via WhatsApp on his phone.
The lady cybercriminal (Sanjana Srinivasan) informed the victim that her IBM team was establishing a data centre at ZAIF for digital currency exchange. She convinced him (businessman) to open a trading account with ZAIF and do trading. It was further revealed during the investigation that on May 30, 2024, the complainant’s trading account showed a negative balance of $11,292. When he informed Sanjana, she advised him to invest more money to recover the losses. Subsequently, the victim continued trading and his account showed significant profit. During his trading, he faced profit and loss frequently, which were only shown in his trading account.
“When he wanted to withdraw money, the customer care of ZAIF asked him to pay 20 per cent of the balance amount. So, he deposited Rs 89 lakh, but the risk control team refused to release his funds under one pretext or another. Then he realised that he had been a victim of a well-planned conspiracy by unknown cyber fraudsters, ZAIF Trading Company and their associates,” informed the senior police official.
The victim had reportedly transferred a total amount of Rs 6,16,37,084 to different accounts as instructed by Sanjana Srinivasan (cyber fraudster) from May 23 to June 24, 2024.
Based on the complaint lodged by the victim, the Crime Branch launched an investigation by registering a case in this regard on July 9, 2024. The police team, after analysing the transaction details and other digital evidence, has arrested the accused Srinivasrao from Bhubaneswar.
The Crime Branch had earlier arrested six accused in this case. Out of six, five were held from Surat in Gujarat and one from Ludhiana in Punjab.
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