31-yr-old arrested for letting cheats use his bank account in Mumbai

MUMBAI: The Central Cyber police station recently arrested a 31-year-old man for allowing a gang of fraudsters to use his bank account to park money defrauded from a cyber cheating case victim. The complainant, a central Mumbai resident, was lured into investing in online share trading but she ended up losing Rs 34.5 lakh in the fraud.
The accused, Ashok Kumar Pasi, was first arrested by the North Region Cyber Crime police station in a separate cheating case.Central Region Cyber police station personnel then arrested the accused in their case.
The Central Region case took place between December 18 and January 17. “The woman, a homemaker, was added to a WhatsApp group where participants were chatting about online share trading and some of them boasted about getting high profits. A member of the WhatsApp group claimed that their company dealt in share trading. A participant in the group told the complainant that a group member, Hina Mehta, will contact her,” said an officer.
Mehta communicated with the complainant and guided her on online share trading. The accused took the complainant’s Aadhar and bank account details and created a virtual wallet in her name. She initially invested Rs 97,000. She could see her investment and profit in the virtual link, for which she was provided a login and password. She saw profit in the virtual account and transferred Rs 1,000 from it to her account. Later, she was asked to trade through the company app but was given different account numbers to send money. “When she wanted to transfer her profit and investment to her account, she couldn’t do it. She inquired about it and was asked to pay taxes. She realised she was cheated and lodged an FIR.
While the police were analysing all the bank accounts where the complainant’s money was transferred, it found one account was in the name of Pasi. Central Region Cyber police station officials found he was already in the custody of North Region Cyber police station. They then took him in custody through the court.
North Region Cyber police station officials had arrested Pasi after a victim who lost Rs 27 lakh in share trading fraud lodged an FIR.