Pramesh S Jain & Binish Thomas (Sub-Editor)
I
n a significant breakthrough,the cybercrime investigators from Bengaluru police’s Southern Division have arrested three people,including a key suspect from Dubai, who were allegedly involved in the courier scam, also known as the FedEx scam.
The three arrested suspects were Mukarram, the alleged kingpin;Mansoor and Ibrahim.All three were locals and Ibrahim assisted the scamsters in moving the proceeds of the crime to Dubai from Bengaluru via the Hawala route,the investigations revealed.
The police team who were probing a case registered on July 2 where the victim was threatened by the suspects after accusing him of sending a parcel containing illegal items,including 140 grams of MDMA (Narcotics),three credit cards,five passports and four kg of clothes.
Over 10 days,where the victim was asked to move to a hotel as he was“under house arrest”,the scamsters conned him of Rs.30 lakh after holding him under duress and conducting “interrogations” on Skype by people who claimed to be CBI officers.
A major lead for the police was the money trail.Since the victim transferred the money to only two accounts, immediately after receiving bank statements,they found out that Rs.26 lakh was transferred to a bank account in Mansoor’s name.
On September 10,officials arrested Mansoor and Imran from a bus stand in Govindapura’s Kavalbyrasandra.
During the interrogation,Mansoor confessed to the police about the Rs.26 lakh in his account and told them that he had transferred Rs.4 lakh to another person and Rs.11 lakh was remaining,which were frozen by the police on July 3.
From Imran,the police recovered Rs.75,000 cash,two mobile phones and one ATM card.On September 11,the two were sent to police custody for seven days.
Upon further interrogation,they revealed that they were recruited by Mukarram and that there were others in Bengaluru,Mumbai and abroad.Police said that the majority of the suspects were holed up in Cambodia.
On September 12,cops arrested Mukarram from his house in Thanisandra when he returned from Dubai.
Police investigations revealed that Mukarram travelled to Dubai a few years ago for work and there he met some Chinese nationals,who brought him into their network and introduced him to the scam.
“They used Mukarram to understand about Karnataka police,and their attire and demanded he bring them some uniforms.
He had contacted a dealer in Bengaluru,who supplies uniforms officially to the department.However,he refused to comply with Mukarram’s request without an official letter from the department,”a senior officer said.
Police also found that Rs.10.25 lakh was sent from Bengaluru to Dubai through the hawala route.
“In this case, the proceeds of the crime weren’t converted to crypto otherwise it would’ve been difficult to trace it,”the officer said.
All three are currently in judicial custody.
