Mumbai: 12-man gang behind Rs 25-cr like-and-earn scam arrested

Cyber crime officials with the arrested accused after a press conference at the BKC police station on Friday. Pics/Anurag Ahire

In a major crackdown by the Cyber Cell of Mumbai police, 12 fraudsters have been arrested in three separate offences for cheating people on the pretext of part-time jobs such as like-and-earn or comment. The accused who were operating through rented shops, managed to cheat people of more than Rs 25 crore. One of the gang members arrested by cops had even formed bogus companies to send money outside the country.

On May 1, mid-day had published a cover page story as our reporter dove deep into the ‘like-and-earn' scam to break down how they operate and how you can safeguard against them. mid-day reached out to the fraudsters to uncover how the scam operates and how victims were duped after being offered work-from-home opportunities and asked to refer other names to fraudsters.

Stamps of various ‘offices' created by the arrested accused

Trap of easy money

In the first case in the crackdown, on March 5, a Chembur resident received a message on Whatsapp by a person identifying herself as Heena. She told the man he could get good returns if he registered for a part-time job such as like-and-earn. The complainant was lured by the easy money and started investing as per the instructions. Within 13 days, the man gave the fraudsters Rs 27.20 lakh which he was asked to pay in different bank accounts. When he realised he was cheated, he registered an offence in the East Region Cyber police station.

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Assistant Police Inspector Mahesh Jadhav and Inspector Vaishali Shravgi launched the probe and through technical analysis of bank accounts, mobile numbers and email IDs, found the location of the fraudsters was Mira-Bhayander. A team went to the area and after an intense search finally managed to locate a gala in which 3 persons were found. The accused were identified as Sneh Mahavir Prasad Shaktawat alias Aditya Jain, 24, Mahavir Singh Daroga alias Roshan, 22, and Dev Kishan Gurjar, 27. The police have recovered 44 cheque books of different banks, 22 debit cards, 13 mobile phones, 9 rubber stamps and 44 SIM cards.

Balsing Rajput, DCP, Cyber

Accused rented a flat

In the second case, which was also registered with the East Region Cyber police station, a Ghatkopar resident was cheated of R10.87 lakh after being promised good returns in a job. Inspector Sheetal Mundhe led the team to track the accused and found them from Andheri. The accused had rented a flat in front of Cubic Mall. On May 10 the police nabbed Manoj Nerurkar, 38 and Kalpesh Medhekar, 27, and on May 15, Subhash Nagam, 45.

"The accused have formed 43 different companies to circulate the money. In fact they had managed to get Importer-Exporter Code certificates for 10 companies, and a GST certificate for 5 companies which were also bogus. The accused have learnt company law and methods to register companies and loopholes in the system. We have discovered that they have done transactions 25 to 30 times and sent money to Dubai and Hong Kong too," said an official from Cyber Cell. "All the accused are Jogeshwari (E) residents," the official added.

DCP Balsing Rajput (second from right) addresses the press conference that revealed the arrests. Pic/Anurag Ahire

‘More than 180 accounts created'

The third case involved the cheating of a 35-year-old woman from Colaba. The fraudsters cheated her of Rs 25.35 lakh on the pretext of a part-time online task job in the first week of April. Senior Inspector Devraj Borse and Sameer Lonkar launched the investigation and discovered that the accused were likely to be around Andheri. In a search operation, the police managed to nab 6 persons in connection with the offence. The accused were identified as Millind Shetye, 55, Santosh Shetye, 48, Gorbahadur Amar Singh, 52, Laxman Sima, 37, Shagufta Khan and Tushar Ajwani, 38. All the accused are residents of Mumbai.

"The accused have cheated several persons. We found that they have created more than 180 bank accounts and they cheated people of R25 crore. We have frozen the amounts and are still trying to get more information about their accounts," said another official.

"Three of the 10 teams formed especially to track such fraudsters have managed to crack the cases, we are confident more accused will be nabbed in near future. We urge citizens not to fall for messages which claim to give them part-time jobs with earnings of upto Rs 5,000 per day. The accused are getting smarter and smarter and trying to erase all their technical footprints," said Balsingh Rajput, DCP (Cyber).

170
No. of such fraud cases filed in first three months of this year