Man held in Kapurthala cyber fraud case, Rs 2.05 cr hawala money recovered

Chandigarh, Sep 23 (PTI) The Punjab Police on Tuesday said it has arrested a person from Ludhiana in a cyber fraud case and recovered Rs 2.05 crore hawala money from his possession.

The arrested accused has been identified as Pawan, a resident of Bikaner in Rajasthan.

With this arrest, the total number of arrested people in this case reached 39, said Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav here on Tuesday.

The Kapurthala Police had recently busted a major cyber fraud racket in Phagwara that primarily targeted people in the USA and Canada under the guise of providing software solutions, arresting 38 accused persons and recovering 40 laptops, 67 mobile phones and Rs 10,00,000 in cash.

Yadav said the police teams also zeroed in on one Ludhiana-based hawala operator and raids were being conducted to nab him.

Preliminary investigations revealed that transactions were primarily conducted through Bitcoin, and hawala channels have also been found to be involved, he said.

The DGP said that further investigations are on to establish forward and backward linkages in this case to expose the full nexus.

Kapurthala Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Gaurav Toora said that following the human-based and technical investigations into the case, police teams established the involvement of a Ludhiana-based person in this racket.

The police teams conducted a raid at the premises of the hawala operator in Ludhiana, where his assistant Pawan was arrested on the spot and cash worth Rs 2.05 crore was recovered.

The SSP said that the racket was being operated by a local individual identified as Amrinder Singh alias Sabhi Tohri, who had leased the premises in Phagwara.

He is linked to Suraj from Delhi, who is further linked with a suspect named Shen from Kolkata. PTI CHS KSS KSS