Kannur Police have caught a major suspect in a high-profile cyber fraud where one of them found a fake trading scheme cheating a 73-year-old retired doctor out of ₹4.43 crore. On Friday, the Kannur City Cyber Crime Police team arrested the accused, who was Zainul Abideen of Arakkappady in Ernakulam.
All officials cited that Abideen was involved in arranging mule bank accounts with cyber fraudsters. A mule account is the bank account where a fraudster opens an account in the name of another person and transfers their transactions. In most cases, a small commission is paid to the account holder, and fraudsters get total control of debit cards and internet banking information.
According to the police, the doctor was referred to an investment through a WhatsApp group telling people about a trading platform called Upstox. During April- June this year, he deposited huge amounts of money into several accounts after being assured of inflated returns by a bogus trading application. But every time he tried to draw out his gains, he received some technical excuse and was coerced into putting money instead.
Inquiries had found that Abideen had opened an account in the name of a Resident of Chennai, Senthil Kumar, to which 44 lakh of the victim’s money was remitted. Senthil is said to have been unaware that the account was being misapplied. Abideen was given ₹1.2 lakh commission on the provision of the account as well as access to the ATM card, online transfers, and OTPs.
Two of the associates of Abideen, Mahaboobash Farooq and Rijas, had already been arrested in Chennai in reference to the case. To date, police have frozen several accounts of the bank connected with the fraud in value of ₹36 lakh.
In Visakhapatnam, Abideen is also undergoing a case of cybercrime and was once arrested in another fraud case in Kannur, but was released on bail.
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