RANCHI: The cyber crime police under the CID in Jharkhand have busted a major online trading fraud racket and arrested a 19-year-old youth in connection with the case.
The arrested youth has been identified as Yashvardhan Kumar from Deoghar. Originally from Gaya in Bihar, he had been living in Deoghar at the time of the arrest.
According to CID officials, the racket was run through a fake trading application called CANTILLON. Using WhatsApp as the main platform, fraudsters lured people to invest in the app by promising high returns. Fake profits were displayed on the app to convince investors that they were earning real money. Once the victims invested, they were persuaded to deposit more funds. However, when they tried to withdraw their money, the app was shut down, leaving them with heavy losses.
Police said the racket defrauded people of nearly Rs 44 lakh, which was siphoned into multiple bank accounts opened under different names. “The CANTILLON app showed dummy profits to mislead investors, but no withdrawals were possible. In this way, Rs 44 lakh was diverted into several accounts,” an official statement said.
During the raid, police seized a mobile phone, two SIM cards, a bank account, and WhatsApp chats linked to the fraud. “Further investigation is underway to trace other accounts, handlers, and digital assets connected to this interstate cyber fraud network,” the CID added.
As per details from the Ministry of Home Affairs, 46 complaints were filed against the accused’s Bank of Baroda account (No. 26450200001669) from victims across several states, including Telangana (4), Tamil Nadu (4), Karnataka (8), Gujarat (6), Maharashtra (4), Uttar Pradesh (5), and others.
The CID is continuing efforts to track the wider network behind the scam.