Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Police busted a gang duping the gullible and sending the extorted money illegally to China, by converting it into cryptocurrency. Police held Dipak Radadiya, a resident of Dhanlakshmi Society, Nikol, and Dilip Jagani, a resident of Harikrupa Society, Saijpur, in Ahmedabad, along with their 13 accomplices. The accused were operating from their office, Krishav Enterprise, at Maruti Plaza, Krishna Nagar, Saijpur, Ahmedabad.
The gang was involved in online cheating. They used to extort money from innocent people by threatening them to be implicated in various cases. At the same time, with the help of their accomplices, they lured the poor into renting their bank accounts to a commission to carry out their illegal activities. The money begotten by fraudulent means was transferred to China and other countries through rented bank accounts.
The scammers were part of a larger international gang based in China, exploiting the fear and greed of common people. Their modus operandi is to call the people and tell them to have received a parcel with drugs, by impersonating police or customs authorities. Another way to dupe people was to entice them to pay voluntarily large sums of money by promising huge returns in the stock market. A part of the gang was opening accounts in the name of the poor by giving them some money. The online banking password and user-id as well as connected mobile numbers, would remain with the handlers in gang members operating from Dubai. The fraudulent money would then make its way to foreign countries via these rented bank accounts.
One of the major accused in the scam, Ketan Patel, came into contact with a Kenyan national while building computer applications. Ketan Patel, a resident of Shyam Shukan Society, PDPU Road, Gandhinagar, facilitated the transfer of the amount received from another accused, Darshil Shah, to the Chinese gang through cryptocurrency. Dipak Radadiya and Dilip Jagani used to send money withdrawn from rented bank accounts to Darshil Shah through Hawala. Police have found 106 bank accounts with transactions totaling 18 crore.
Dipak Radadiya and Dilip Jagani, with their accomplices Faizan Shaikh, Raju Parmar, Amit Patel, Raju Sankhat, Darshan Senjaliya, Rajesh Jasoliya, Vicky Patel, Kishor Patel, and Alkesh Patel, lured the poor to rent their bank accounts at a price. The duo then would withdraw large sums of money from these accounts by cheques payable to self. Radadiya and Jagani used to get a 3% commission on the money transferred.
The police have recovered 30 passbooks of various banks, 39 chequebooks, 59 ATM cards, account opening forms of various banks, and a note-counting machine. The police registered the FIR under BNS sections 61(2), 316(2), 318(4), 319(2), and IT Act section 66(D). The investigation is still ongoing to unearth deeper layers of the fraud network.
