India News | UP Minister's Company Accountant Duped of Rs 2.08 Cr; 5 Held

Prayagraj (UP), Nov 24 (PTI) Police on Sunday arrested five members of a gang who cheated an accountant of a company owned by Uttar Pradesh Minister Nand Gopal Gupta of Rs 2.08 crore and recovered 14 Android/Apple phones, 10 ATM cards and 10 SIM cards from their possession, an official said.

Divyanshu of Bihar's Patna, Pulkit Dwivedi of Mau, Sanjeev Kumar, Surjeet Singh and Vijay Kumar (all residents of Bareilly) were arrested, said Cyber Police Station SHO Rajiv Kumar Tiwari.

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He said that on November 13, a message came on WhatsApp of Ritesh Srivastava, an accountant of the minister's company Icavo Agro Daily Private Limited.

Abhishek Gupta's (minister's son) profile photo was on that number. The message said that this is a new number and necessary information was sought for the proposed necessary meeting, he added.

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Assuming that it was the instructions of the company's director Abhishek Gupta, Ritesh shared the company's account information on that number.

After which, while talking about finalizing a business deal, he was asked to immediately send Rs 68 lakh to the client, for which the account details were sent.

After this, while mentioning the deal, he was asked to send Rs 65 lakh and Rs 75 lakh respectively to two different accounts. Following the instructions of the director, this amount was sent. In the evening, when the director (Abhishek Gupta) was talked to in this regard, it was found that he did not send any such message. Then the cyber fraud came to light, the SHO said.

Tiwari said that during interrogation, the gang members said that they are connected to cyber thugs sitting in foreign countries through Telegram.

They use the account in various types of cyber fraud and invest money in crypto currency. To avoid arrest and keep their identity confidential, they use techniques like VPN and IP bounce, he added.

On the complaint of Srivastava, a case was registered on November 14 in the Cyber Police Station against unidentified individuals under sections 319 (2), 318 (4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act, police had earlier said.

All the three bank accounts in which the money was transferred were frozen.

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