Hyderabad: A man from Kerala was arrested for allegedly duping a city-based nurse of Rs 5.34 lakh by conspiring with the Pakistani fraudsters and making her transfer money in the bank accounts under the pretext that she has won a lucky draw lottery of a mobile services provider.
Police suspect there could be more victims who might have fallen prey to the fraud. The modus operandi adopted by the accused persons was to call the potential victims from Pakistan-originated numbers and tell them they have won a Airtel lucky draw to the tune of several lakhs of rupees, a Hyderabad police release said on Monday.
The victims were then asked to pay different “charges” to claim the prize money and told to deposit/transfer money into the bank accounts provided by the fraudsters, it said.
The accused, identified as Sulaiman Kutty from Palakkad district of Kerala, made the bank accounts available for the transactions for a commission of 10 percent on the deposited amount.
“Later, the money will be withdrawn by the accused through ATM or cheques and cash will be handed over to one Nasir who is the agent of Pakistan-based fraudsters. Nasir used to send money to Pakistan through Hawala after deducting his own commission,” according to police.
The nurse got a call in November last year wherein the caller told her that her mobile number has won a lucky draw from Airtel cellular company for an amount of Rs 50 lakh for which she was asked to pay Rs 8000 towards charges.
The woman made a series of transactions through NEFT transfers and cheques, totaling Rs 5.34 lakh. She lodged a complaint after she grew suspicious.
During investigation, police traced Kutty and arrested him from Kerala on Sunday. He was earlier arrested by the Kerala police in two similar cases of maintaining fraudulent bank accounts. Police also found that he conspired with Nasir, a resident of Kerala and Muneer and Faisal who are based in Pakistan.
Police seized 124 debit cards and 107 bank passbooks from Sulaiman Kutty. “Kutty is regularly communicating with Muneer and Faisal of Pakistan over WhatsApp and calls,” police said, adding efforts are on to nab Nasir.
PTI