One more held in cyber fraud racket, total arrests reach 39

In a significant follow-up action to the recent busting of a major international cyber fraud syndicate in Phagwara, Kapurthala Police have arrested another accused from Ludhiana and recovered Rs 2.05 crore hawala money from his possession, taking the total number of arrests to 39 and the total recovered amount to Rs 2.15 crore in this case, said Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Gaurav Yadav here on Tuesday.

The arrested accused has been identified as Pawan, a resident of Bikaner in Rajasthan.

As per the information received, Kapurthala Police had busted a major cyber fraud racket in Phagwara that primarily targeted people in the USA and Canada in the guise of providing software solutions, arresting 38 accused persons and recovering 40 laptops, 67 mobile phones, and Rs 10,00,000 in cash.

DGP Gaurav Yadav said that the police teams have also zeroed in on a Ludhiana-based hawala operator and raids are being conducted to nab him. Preliminary investigations have revealed that transactions were primarily conducted through Bitcoin and hawala channels have also been found involved, he said. The DGP said that further investigations are on to establish forward and backward linkages in this case to expose the full nexus.

Sharing details of the operation, SSP, Kapurthala, Gaurav Toora said that following the human-based and technical investigations into the case, police teams have established involvement of Ludhiana-based person in this racket.

Acting swiftly, police teams under the supervision of SP (Investigation) Prabhjot Singh Virk and led by DSP (Detective) Parminder Singh, in-charge CIA Jarnail Singh and SHO Cyber Crime Amandeep Kaur conducted a raid at the premises of the hawala operator in Ludhiana, where his assistant Pawan was arrested from the spot and cash worth Rs 2.05 crore was recovered. The SSP said that the racket was being operated by a local individual, identified as Amrinder Singh alias Sabhi Tohri, who had leased the premises in Phagwara. He is linked to Suraj from Delhi, who is further linked with a suspect named Shen from Kolkata.

In this regard, an FIR has already been registered under sections 111, 318(4) and 61(2) of BNS and sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology (IT) Act at the cyber crime police station, Kapurthala.