Share trading scam: Senior official, ex-staffer of private bank held for duping man of Rs 33 lakh

Thane, Apr 2 (PTI) Police have arrested a senior official of a prominent private bank along with its retired staffer for allegedly conning a man from Thane in Maharashtra into paying Rs 33 lakh on the pretext of share trading, an official said on Tuesday.

The arrest was made by officials of the cyber wing of the Navi Mumbai police last week, he said.

"A serving senior official and former employee - both from the Ulhasnagar branch of a private bank - were arrested for the crime," senior inspector Gajanan Kadam of the Cyber police station said.

The accused lured the victim into investing money into share trading by promising him good returns, he said.

"They made the victim pay Rs 33,05,023 through online mode. Later, when the victim sought his invested amount along with returns, they gave evasive answers. Following that, a case was registered," he said.

The cyber police formed different teams to probe the crime. They traced the bank accounts where the money was transferred and the persons linked to the accounts.

One of the accused, Pravinkumar Ramesh Mishra (26), was taken into custody. During his interrogation, he told the police that he duped the victim with the help of Ashok Shyamlal Chouhan (27), the serving senior official of the private bank, he said.

"Mishra said he used to ensnare victims and send them to Chouhan, who would then open the accounts and keep with him their debit cards, cheque books and other things associated with the account and use them for committing a fraud," the official said.

Both the accused were arrested on March 28, and remanded into police custody for five days, he said, adding that four mobile phones, eight SIM cards, seven bank debit cards, two cheque books, three passbooks, and six rubber stamps were recovered from them.

During their interrogation, the duo told the police that they were involved in four cyber crimes elsewhere in India and one of the offences was registered with the Cyber police in Delhi, according to the official.

During their probe, the police have frozen a total sum of Rs 15,31,769 and a probe into the crime is being carried out, the police said. PTI COR NP