Two more held for fuelling Rs.10.4-crore INOX 'Boss Scam'
MUMBAI, Aug. 20 -- Police have arrested two more individuals in the Rs.10.4-crore INOX Group cheating case, both of them linked to the "Boss Scams", where fraudsters have been getting corporate executives to transfer large sums of money from their companies to mule bank accounts on instructions of their "bosses". In each instance, the "boss' has been a fraudster impersonating a senior corporate executive.
The two arrests, made by the South Cyber police, take the total number of arrests in the INOX case to ten. Police said the accused had supplied SIM cards used in the crime, where fraudsters convinced a senior accounts executive to transfer Rs.10.4 crore into mule bank accounts, by posing as a senior director of the group. Police said the accused were involved in at least five similar "Boss Scams".
The two arrested accused are Amir Chand Mohammad Khan (22), a resident of Siwan in Bihar, and Suraj Kumar Pradeep Kumar Saw aka Vishal (22), a resident of Dhanbad in Jharkhand, said deputy commissioner of police, cyber, Bajrang Bansode. He said 161 SIM cards were seized from them.
"While investigating the INOX Group cheating case, we had earlier arrested eight people and frozen around Rs.6 crore in various bank accounts. The two accused played a crucial role in providing the fraudsters with mobile SIM cards used in various crimes," said Bansode.
"One June 3, a fraudster used these SIM cards to send WhatsApp messages to Girish Amin, deputy general manager, accounts, with the INOX Group, posing as a senior director with the group. He convinced Amin to make an urgent transfer of Rs.10.4 crore to bank accounts provided by him," said the police officer. Believing he had been interacting with the senior director, Amin followed the instructions and transferred the money.
The WhatsApp number from which messages were sent to Amin had used the name and display picture of the director to support the impersonation, police said. The WhatsApp conversation started with the fraudster informing the accounts executive that he was attending an important meeting and would call him later. Then he told Amin to transfer Rs.46.5 lakh to a certain bank account.
"Between June 3 and 15, Amin allegedly acted on similar WhatsApp instructions and transferred money from the company's accounts," said the police officer. "The fraud came to light when Amin contacted the INOX Group director to seek invoices for the money transferred. The director said he had never instructed Amin to transfer any money," said the police officer.
Police said one of the accused, Amir Chand Mohammad Khan, ran a mobile shop in Siwan. He had been approached by an army jawan to port his mobile number. Khan issued a fresh SIM card, but told the jawan the porting had failed. Khan then sold the SIM card to the other accused, Suraj Saw, from whom the SIM card made its way to the Boss Scam fraudsters.
Police said Khan had similarly supplied SIM cards in the Mega Pipes fraud case, in which an accountant was instructed to transfer Rs.48 lakh by scamsters posing as a director of the company, in February....
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