KOCHI: The Ernakulam Rural Cyber Police have expanded to Bengaluru the probe into the over Rs 250-crore part-time job fraud having links to China. The police team from Ernakulam is in Bengaluru coordinating with the Karnataka police.
The police have also traced more accounts operated by the fraudsters, indicating that the actual money siphoned off by them would be higher than the Rs 250 crore estimated earlier.
The investigation was expanded based on the information provided by Manoj Sreenivas, 33, of Swagath Layout in Vidyaranyapura, Bengaluru. Manoj was arrested by the cyber police last month after several people from Ernakulam were targeted by fraudsters offering part-time online jobs. The victims were tasked with ‘liking’ YouTube videos before being enticed to make investments for higher returns. Lured in by initial returns, the victims invested more money and ultimately got cheated.
Manoj’s interrogation revealed the presence of a huge network in Bengaluru. “Manoj was just one link in the entire chain. His task was arranging the current accounts to which the victims deposited money. The money was converted to cryptocurrency and transferred to people handling the network from China. Our probe revealed more people like Manoj were arranging the current accounts for scammers operating from abroad. We have information about some of them and our team is in Bengaluru to track them down. We have sought the assistance of the Karnataka police. More arrests are likely in the coming days,” said an officer.
The police had earlier found that the fraudsters operated 40 current bank accounts to divert funds abroad. Now, they have traced more such accounts.
“Recently, we found a current account operated by fraudsters involved in a transaction of `60 crore. There were more such accounts. They have been frozen. We suspect the total amount swindled is much higher than the `250 crore we estimated after Manoj’s arrest,” said an officer.
Manoj had confessed to starting the fraud after befriending Kevin and Jaison, both based in Dubai. The probe revealed they were China nationals using fake names.