Trio siphons off Rs 5.75 lakh within three hours from scrap dealer

(From left) The accused Imran, Nikhil and Sagar.

The Vinoba Bhave Nagar police arrested three men for siphoning off Rs 5.75 lakh from a scrap dealer within three hours. The accused have been identified as Imran Mehboob Sheikh, 22; Sagar Jadhav, 25, and Nikhil Panmand, 24. Sheikh's father is a cop in Solapur.

According to the police, the incident came to light after Afzal Jamal Khan, 26, woke up on December 10 and realised that Rs 5,74,996 had been siphoned off from his account through 23 transactions.

Khan rushed to the bank and also informed the police that he had not shared any details of his bank or any OTPs. Following this, the police filed a complaint against unidentified men.

Senior inspector Rajesh Pawar formed a team including inspector Maruti Rade, sub inspector Subhash Rathod, constable Anand Pawar and Ajay Bote.

"We asked the bank to furnish details of the transactions and which accounts received the funds. They said money was deposited to three different Paytm accounts," a police officer from VB Nagar police station said, adding that they asked Paytm officials to share details of the wallets and found that all three account holders were in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai.

Further investigation revealed that after money was deposited in four accounts, money it was further deposited in 13 more wallets.

The police then rushed to Kharghar with details of all 17 accounts, and found that one wallet holder had the same address and contact details.

"During inquiry, he said that Sheikh, Jadhav and Nikhil had called him and asked to return the money in cash deposited in his Paytm account. When he asked them why they were depositing money in his account, they told him that their Paytm wallet had been blocked due to incomplete KYC," another officer added.

Cops tracked Imran Sheikh in Sector 19 of Kharghar, whereas, Sagar and Nikhil were traced in a flat at Sector 12. Cops seized Rs 40,000 cash, a laptop and two routers from them.

Police said they spent the remaining amount on alcohol or buying drugs such as LSD and mephedrone. Imran, who has studied till Class 12, was living in Kharghar on the pretext of looking for a job. Police said he claimed to know tricks to hack emails and phones through dark net. "Imran was planning to siphon off money since the start of December 2019 and on December 9, he asked Sagar and Nikhil to be ready 15 paytm wallets. In return he assured to spend money on them and pay some of their bills.

"We are still unable to understand how the accused managed to hack the email because from December 10, the complainant did not receive any mail, which means they were hacked by someone else. The bank details may have accessed through the mails which the complainant received," Rajesh Pawar, senior inspector of VB Nagar police station said.

"We arrested trio under section 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant sections of the IT Act 2000. We are yet to receive information of IP addresses which will give us a go-ahead," Pawar said.

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