Bhubaneswar, Oct 23 The Commissionerate Police on Monday arrested a fraudster on the charges of duping an ex-Indian Air Force officer of Rs 35 lakh on the pretext of recovering money lost through online gaming by the victim.
The accused, identified as Santosh Sahoo, 26, is a native of Pattamundai area in Kendrapara district. Santosh is currently staying at Patrapada under Khandagiri police limits in Bhubaneswar.
“On October 19, we received a report from the victim Kishore Chandra Gantayat who alleged that someone was illegally withdrawing money from his account through unauthorised access. Based on the report, we registered a case (100/23) at the cyber police station under Sections 419, 420 of the IPC and Section 66(D) of the IT Act after preliminary investigation, “said Goutam Kisan, ACP Zone V.
Kisan said during verification of the complainant’s account police found that huge amounts of money was transferred to the bank account of accused Santosh between June and September this year.
The investigating officers also later came to know that Santosh is a friend of the complainant.
“Santosh after gaining the trust of Gantayat managed to obtain his bank details. Later, he transferred around Rs 35 lakh to his own account through unauthorised access of Gantayat’s account,” Kisan added. In July this year, Gantayat had gone to AIIMS, Bhubaneswar for some work where he first met the accused who identified himself as a data scientist.
During their conversation, Gantayat informed Santosh that he had lost a considerable amount of money while playing online games on his mobile phone. Gantayat later handed over his phone to the accused who assured the complainant that he would get back the money lost while playing online games. When Santosh managed to recover some gaming amount Gantayat shared all his bank details with the accused.
Santosh used to first transfer the amounts to two different accounts in Bengaluru and Asansol before transferring it to his account. “We are verifying the involvement of the persons whose accounts Santosh used to transfer the money,” said a police officer.
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