Rourkela (Odisha), Apr 9 (PTI) Odisha Police claimed to have busted an international cyber fraud racket and arrested nine people from Rourkela.

The police also seized Rs 1.41 crore from 23 bank accounts, a senior police officer said on Wednesday.

The arrested persons were identified as Kishan Agarwal (26), Kunal Agarwal (25), Girdhar Singh (24), Ajay Kumar (25), Sandeep Kumar Soni (28), Soumendra Singh Rajput (27), Abhijit Bhardwaj (27), and Dinesh Kumar Sahu (25), all from various parts of Chhattisgarh, and Arjun Singh (27) from Uttarakhand. They were arrested on Tuesday evening, the police officer said.

Briefing reporters here, Western range DIG Brijesh Kumar Rai said, “Acting on a tip-off, our team kept two apartments in Rourkela city under surveillance. The watch was carried out because of information from sources who informed that there were movements of many unknown persons in the locality.” In the first raid, two persons were taken into custody and in the second, five more were found with various incriminating documents such as fake SIMs, mobile phones and laptops, he said.

“They were swindling money using a fake app, which they had created, known as TradeNow,” the officer said.

The arrested team were operating mule accounts and used to transact more than Rs 50 lakh every day, Rai said.

During further investigation, another two accused persons involved in the cyber fraud racket were arrested.

Kishan Agarwal, mastermind of the racket, used run the racket from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and operated in India and other countries, the DIG said, adding he was also nabbed from Rourkela.

“During interrogation, the accused persons revealed that they were using the fake mobile app to lure investors by promising very high returns in the share market within a short span of time,” Rourkela SP Nitesh Wadhwani said.

Explaining the gang’s modus operandi, the officer said that initially, they used to give profits of smaller amounts ranging between Rs 1,000 and Rs 4,000 to the investors and, later, when people put in a higher amount of money, the accused used to grab the amount by showing it as loss in the share market.

To gain the confidence of the investors, the accused used a purported video of a renowned Bollywood actor promoting their app, the SP said, adding he would be informed soon about this.

Police seized five laptops, 31 mobile phones, 68 SIM cards, 20 ID proofs, four passbooks and cheques, two pen drives, 19 ATM cards, a money counting machine, a car and a scooter.

Besides, Rs 1.41 crore has been seized from 23 accounts so far. In all, 176 accounts are under scrutiny, police said. PTI COR BBM BBM ACD