Delhi: Elderly man duped of Rs 16 lakh in investment fraud; 4 arrested from Ahmedabad

New Delhi, Dec 10 (PTI) Delhi Police arrested four members of an alleged cyber fraud module that duped an elderly man of Rs 16 lakh through an investment scam operated via a social media groups in southwest Delhi, an official said on Wednesday.

The accused – Manish Dilip Bhai Koshti (37), Md Zaid A Sidi (28), Md Aezaz Khimani (35) and Shaikh Abrar (27) – are all residents of Ahmedabad, they said.

A complaint was received through the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) from a Palam Colony resident who alleged that he was added to a group named “71 Abbott” where members impersonated representatives of an investment firm and promised returns up to 300 per cent.

He was induced to transfer money in several instalments, resulting in losses of Rs 16,00,000. A case was registered on October 27 based on his complaint.

Police tracked the digital trail of the transactions and found that portions of the cheated amount – Rs 50,000 and Rs 2 lakh – had moved through two bank accounts before being settled into a bank account held by Koshti through payment gateways.

A raid in Ahmedabad led to Koshti’s arrest, who revealed that he and his associates ran a financial settlement module that routed cheated money through credit card bill payments, USDT transactions and other channels, earning a five per cent commission per transaction, police said.

Subsequently, three others – Zaid, Aezaz and Abrar – were also arrested from Ahmedabad. The group is believed to be linked to 163 NCRP complaints registered across multiple states and Union Territories.

Further investigation is underway, police added. PTI SSJ SSJ OZ OZ