8 arrested for swindling Rs 1.8 crore from a resident in FedEx courier scam

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The North Division Cyber Economics and Narcotics (CEN) police nabbed eight accused for allegedly running a fake courier scam and recovered Rs 13.17 lakh in cash.

The cops also freezed Rs 19 lakh found in different bank accounts belonging to the accused persons. Sources from police said that 11 mobile phones that the accused had used to scam gullible people have been seized along with several cheque books, passbooks and debit cards.

A 58-year-old resident of Malleswaram received a Whatsapp audio call made on November 10 by an accused who introduced himself to be an official from Mumbai Crime Branch.

The caller allegedly told him that illegal items including expired passports, 2.35 kgs of clothes, two pen drives, one laptop, credit cards, bank documents and 140 grams of MDMA had been found in a parcel being sent in his wife’s name from Mumbai to Thailand.

In a subsequent call, a person claiming to be a DCP of Mumbai Police claimed that they suspect his wife to be involved in money laundering and drug peddling.

The fraudsters then demanded that the victim must send money to them for bank verification and that the money would be returned to him after checking his bank statements.

The victim in his complaint, stated that he sent them Rs 66 lakh from his HDFC bank account and then Rs 42 lakh from another account. However later he realised that he had been duped of Rs 1.8 crore and filed a complaint with Malleswaram police.

The fake Mumbai policemen and courier firm worker used the names of Nithin Patil, Sachin Shinde and Ajay Kumar Bansal.

In a swift action, the police launched a probe and found that nearly Rs 9.34 lakh of the Rs 1.08 crore swindled from the victim was transferred to an RBL bank account and withdrawn in Davangere in central Karnataka.

The police examined the CCTV footage at the bank to determine the identities of the suspects who had physically withdrawn a portion of the swindled money.

Based on information from the leads in Davangere, the Bengaluru North CEN police announced the arrest of eight persons on Friday. The accused have been identified as Wasim N, 30, Habeebullah M, 35, Nizamuddin, 24, Mushraff Khan, 24, Nurullah Khan, 53, Mohammed Umar, 44, Syed Ahmed Moula, 35, and Syed Hussain, 25.

The arrested men hail from Davangere and Bengaluru, the police said.