Representative image of a police van.
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New Delhi: The Delhi Police has arrested two men in separate cases of cyber-fraud of duping victims of more than Rs 50 lakh through online investment scams, an official said on Saturday.
The accused have been identified as Sunil Kumar Reddy (44), an MBA graduate and business development executive from Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, and Ayush Semwal (21), a B Com third-year student and call-centre employee from Gautam Buddh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, he said.
They used camouflaged investment advisory platforms, fake incentive schemes and counterfeit crypto-trading interfaces to lure victims and siphon off their money.
The two arrests were made in separate cases registered under relevant sections of the BNS.
In the first case, a complainant reported being cheated of Rs 23.8 lakh on the pretext of stock market investment, police said.
Sunil allegedly posed as an investment adviser and induced the victim to transfer funds through 15 RTGS and NEFT transactions into multiple accounts.
Police said all the identified bank accounts were frozen promptly and Rs 5 lakh was refunded to the complainant. After sustained efforts, Reddy was traced and arrested from Anantapur, they added.
In the second case, a private employee from Lucknow alleged he was duped of Rs 26.49 lakh after being promised online incentives and later pushed into investing in a bogus crypto trading platform.
Ayush was involved in moving the cheated funds through mule accounts, police said.
At least 18 "Layer-1" bank accounts were used to route and disguise the proceeds of the crime, police said, adding that all accounts linked to the operation were subsequently frozen.
During interrogation, Semwal allegedly confessed to selling several bank accounts to an associate in exchange for commissions, police said.
He was arrested from his workplace in Noida Sector-58 on November 8. Further investigation is underway, police said.