Chinese hawala: Karnataka police bust big scam
Bengaluru, June 13: Karnataka police on Saturday arrested two Chinese nationals and seven others when bust a scam of over ₹ 290 crore that involved duping people through a mobile app after promising attractive interest on investment.
The scam, aided by shell companies, is linked to money laundering and the suspected kingpin is a Kerala-based businessman with proximity to Chinese "hawala" operators, they said.
Cyber Crime Division of Crime Investigation Department (CID) said it has arrested the accused - two Chinese nationals, two Tibetans and five others who acted as directors of the companies involved - and a search is on for the rest.
A complaint from Razorpay Software Private Limited said the accused availed "payment solutions" from them, claiming that they are in gaming, social and e-commerce businesses.
They, however, defrauded the company by using computer resources and by deviating from their original, registered line of business, the complaint said.
They started routing their transactions to collect payments from a different business named "Powerbank" - an app listed in Google Playstore, the cyber police said in a release.
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Through customer complaints, the complainant company got to know that public invested money in the "Powerbank" app to earn interest on the invested amount.
The accused persons, after accepting the investments, neither gave the agreed interest nor the principal amount and cheated customers.
A
case
has
been
registered
under
the
Information
Technology
Act
and
Indian
Penal
Code
for
"cheating",
the
police
said
and
added
that
the
investigating
team
have
arrested
nine
men.
During
investigation,
it
was
found
that
Anas
Ahmed,
a
Kerala-based
businessman,
is
the
main
person
involved.
"We
have
also
identified
that
he
has
very
proximate
connections
with
the
Chinese
hawala
operators,
which
has
come
to
light
during
the
course
of
the
investigation.
"He
had
opened
shell
companies
in
the
name
of
Bull
Finch
Technologies,
H&S
ventures
and
Clifford
ventures
to
route
the
fraud
money.
Anas
Ahamed
is
married
to
a
Chinese
national
and
incidentally
he
had
studied
in
China,"
the
police
said
in
the
release.
Online applications hosted by him were later camouflaged and converted into different apps including Power Bank application, seeking investment from the public and promising good returns, they said.
An unusual spike was seen in investments on the day Anees Ahmed announced much higher returns. Subsequently, such apps were removed from Google Playstore and other websites and he fled with the money.
Investigation showed ₹ 290 crore inflow into his bank accounts and the police were successful in freezing a significant portion of it. There was a huge spike in opening of shell companies since November 2020.
"We have also observed that the Chinese handlers are in possession of a huge number of shell companies and bank accounts. Lured by the offer of the Chinese nationals, many innocent Indians and Tibetans have fallen in their trap to open shell companies and open bank accounts for them," they said.