The Hyderabad police have busted a Chinese investment fraud of about Rs 903 crore and arrested ten people including one Chinese and one Taiwanese nationals.
The racket involves luring customers into investing in a finance app called LOXAM. The money is deposited into the bank accounts created by the co-accused Indians on the instructions of the Chinese, for which they get a hefty cut.
The accused Sahil Bajaj, Sunny alias Pankaj, Virender Singh, Sanjay Yadav, Navneeth Kaushik, Mohammad Parvez, Syed Sultan, Mirza Nadeem Baig, Chinese national Lec alias Li Zhongjun and Taiwanese national Chu Chun-yu were arrested by the police from various locations in the country.
Revealing the details of the case on Wednesday, Hyderabad police commissioner CV Anand said that the hawala scam was operated from Delhi and Mumbai.
The Cyber Crime Police were acting on the complaint lodged by a resident of Tarnaka, Hyderabad.
The complainant was cheated after investing Rs 1.6 lakh in an investment app called LOXAM. Police investigation revealed that his money was deposited in the Indus Ind Bank account in the name of Xindai Technologies Private Limited, opened by one Virender Singh.
Singh was arrested in Pune. He revealed that he opened a bank account in the name of Xindai Technologies on the orders of one Jack (Chinese) and handed the account's internet banking user name and password to him.
The cops found that the bank accounts of Betench Networks Private Limited, and Xindai Technologies share the same phone number.
One Sanjay Kumar of Delhi opened the account of Betench on the instructions of Lec alias Li Zhounjau and gave the details to Pei and Huan Zhuan in China. Similarly, he opened 15 other bank accounts and sent them to one Chu Chun-yu of Taiwan.
Chun-yu, temporarily residing in Mumbai, sends the account details, user ID, password and SIM cards to other countries. Sanjay and Virender received Rs 1.2 lakh as commission per account which was arranged by Li Zhounjau.
Money was transferred from the account of Xindai Technologies to 38 other bank accounts. It also went to the bank accounts of Hyderabad-based Syed Sultan and Mirza Nadeem Baig. These two had opened bank current accounts for the sake of commission as per instructions of another Hyderabadi Mohammad Parvez. Parvez in turn gave those bank account details to Imran who resides in Dubai. Imran along with others used these two bank accounts for investment frauds.
A large amount of money from the 38 accounts of Xindai Technologies went to Ranjan MoneyCorp and KDS Forex Private Limited. Navneet Kaushik in-turn sends the money received in the bank account to the Forex exchanges run in the name of International Tours and Travels. He converts the money received in rupees into US $ in cash and gives it to Sahil and Sunny.
The money changers and Forex Exchanges are licensed by the RBI. However, they have repeatedly flouted the RBI guidelines regarding money changing activities. Sahil and Sunny@ Pankaj joined hands with other fraudsters and transferred the above money abroad in hawala mode.
The transactions in the account of Ranjan Money Corp, are to the tune of Rs 441 crore rupees in a period of seven months. Another Rs 462 crore rupees transactions were carried out in KDS Forex Private Limited account.
“It has come to light during our investigation that the fraud committed through hawala is to the extent of Rs 903 crore. So far, Rs. 1.91 crore has been frozen in various bank accounts in this case,” Anand told reporters.