Four arrested over cyber-fraud involving 7 Cr.

Hyderabad: An online investment racket runnning to over Rs 7 crore has been busted here and four people have been arrested in this connection, police said on Monday. The four allegedly cheated nearly 2,500 people from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana of over Rs 7 crore after promising high returns on their investments, the police said.

The accused developed a website and a mobile application and displayed photos of foreigners as directors and team members of a company claiming it to be a United Kingdom entity and a MNC to attract innocent citizens, Cyberabad Commissioner of Police V C Sajjanartold reporters.

Even though no company existed physically and there was no product involved, the accused used two virtual UK numbers for communicating with the customers and offered them high returns on their investments, the police said. Any person who wished to invest in the company has to register as a member and can deposit in five investment plans with amounts ranging between Rs 10,000 and Rs 1 lakh and they would be given a refund of 5 per cent of the invested amount as commission everyday upto 60 working days, they said.

If the member joins any other customer then they would get 10 per cent commission on the investment, they said. The accused initially offered commission to some depositors while the remaining promised amount and profits were defrauded, the police said. They ran the company from July to September this year and closed it since they got scared of the huge money flow into their bank accounts, they said.

One of the victims from Hyderabad filed a complaint with the police in October based on which a case was registered and during the course of investigation the accused were identified and arrested from Visakhapatnam.