BHOPAL: A father-son duo, found to be running Madrasas in Kannauj district of Uttar Pradesh, have been arrested by the Madhya Pradesh police, for enabling an inter-state racket of cyber fraudsters in parking the proceeds of money extorted through the menace of “digital arrest.”
The duo identified as Ali Ahmad Khan (69) and his 36-year-old son Asad Ahmad Khan has been arrested by the Indore police’s crime branch from the Kannauj district of UP. Following investigations into extortion of Rs 46 lakh from a 69-year-old woman in Indore in September via “digital arrest.”
The unidentified cyber fraudsters had extorted Rs 46 lakh from an elderly woman from Indore in September this year, after keeping her in “digital arrest” for five days, posing as officials of TRAI, CBI and other enforcement agencies.
The Indore police crime branch’s probe revealed that one of the two bank accounts in which the aged woman was made to transfer Rs 40 lakh and Rs 6 lakh were opened just nine days before the alleged extortion and fraud happened.
The probe took the Indore cops to the Kannauj district of UP, where it was found that Rs 40 lakh was parked initially in an account held in the name of Falah Daren Madrasa Samiti. The Samiti run by the father-son duo was found to be running 2-3 Madrasas in UP, including Kannauj district’s Satoura area.
According to cops privy to the ongoing probe, the primary grilling of the father-son duo has revealed that the current account opened by them in September to run the Madrasas was used to park Rs 40 lakh, after talking to a caller who rang them from a Mauritius number (which may be a masked VoIP call).
The caller promised to render them a 50% commission out of the parked money, after which the fraud money was parked in their account.
“We’ve gathered details of nine accounts held by the duo and their kin, including in the name of the committee formed to run the Madrasas. While the father-son duo are being grilled to know much about their involvement in the cyber extortion-fraud, transactions in the other eight accounts held by them and those related to them will also be probed in detail, once we’ve details of those transactions,” one of the cops forming part of the probe said.
The sum of Rs 40 lakh and Rs 6 lakh which was deposited by the elderly woman in two accounts initially under threat from the cyber fraudsters in September, was subsequently diverted to 18 other bank accounts operating in multiple states of the country. These 18 bank accounts in multiple states were not just used to divert the money extorted from Indore, but a much bigger sum totalling Rs 1.5 crore, including money derived from similar extortion fraud from victims in Chennai and Nashik.
According to additional DCP (crime-Indore) Rajesh Dandotiya, “Our teams are working in the case in multiple states, including Uttar Pradesh, from where the father-son duo has been held for allowing the cyber fraudsters to park the illegal money.”