Money trail in 22cr share-trading fraud reveals labyrinth of 1,235 bank accounts, 82,000 transactions

Pune: The ongoing investigation into the Rs22.03 crore online share-trading fraud case in the city, which came to the fore in Jan this year, has revealed that the ill-begotten money was transferred to as many as 1,235 bank accounts across the country. These include accounts in banks in Noida, Delhi, West Bengal, Bengaluru, Solapur, and other places across India. Pune cyber police said the crooks made 82,000 banking transactions to transfer money from one account to the next.
So far, eight people have been arrested in this case from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Thane, and the authorities have managed to freeze Rs3.24 crore of the money involved in the fraud. This frozen amount alone had been transferred to various bank accounts through over 40,000 transactions, police said. Senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of the cyber police told TOI, "The minimum amount transferred by the crooks was Rs678, and the maximum was Rs1 crore. They always transfer money from one bank account to another in small amounts to create a large and winding money trail. In this way, we studied 82,000 transactions and went on to identify these 1,235 bank accounts used by the fraudsters." She added, "These transactions are done very quickly and to prolong the probe mounted by investigation agencies." On Feb 10, police arrested Akash Chandrashekhar Marathe (27), Lala Keshav Umap (26) and Parmeshwar Dilip Dabhade (23) from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, as well as Munilkumar Surendra Singh (51) of Ambarnath in Thane. Two days later (Feb 12), they nabbed Dishant Kamble (22), Sahil Shrisundaram (22), Vishwajeet Khandare (21), Abhjit Nade (21), all residents of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Shinde explained, "Generally, fraudsters transfer cheated sums to five to eight bank accounts, known as the first layer. Then comes the second layer, in which the amount is transferred to 40-50 bank accounts, and then it goes on multiplying. In this way, 1,235 bank accounts were used by these fraudsters. The majority of these are mule bank accounts. So far, we revealed that these mule bank accounts are owned by casual workers and poor people. Some of these casual workers gave their accounts to the fraudsters, thinking they would get a loan of Rs2,000-3,000." "Our investigation is currently focusing on Kamble, a BCS graduate, who works with a courier company in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. We suspect that he collected mule bank accounts from poor people and casual workers by promising them trivial amounts," the officer said.