A 40-year-old Jaipur-based former restauranteur, struggling with business losses, has been arrested along with his accomplice for allegedly working with an Indonesia-based cybercriminal as a “supplier” of illegally obtained bank data of unsuspecting customers.
The Delhi Police on Thursday said the two were involved in more than 20 cases of cyber cheating and were worked with an international cyber-crime syndicate whose leaders are suspected to be hiding in Indonesia, Cambodia and Singapore.
The former restaurateur, identified as 40-year-old Devraj Kapoor, had been running a restaurant in Jaipur for over a decade before financial struggles led him to cybercrime. He allegedly earned commissions ranging from ₹50,000 to ₹4 lakh for every account detail he gave them, and later shifted to Mumbai with his family, said the police.
The matter came to light when a 48-year-old businessman in Green Park lost over ₹10 lakh and approached the cyber police station (southwest) on October 24. He was lured to join a WhatsApp group and open an institutional banking account and invest in stocks and IPOs. Police said the complainant alleged he lost money after the accused took his account details and blocked him out of the account.
They then asked him to invest even more money to unlock the account.
A team led by inspector Vikas Buldak analysed the money trail and found a bank account which belonged to a Kapoor. Police said they found that Kapoor received ₹4 lakh more on the day of the cheating incident. This fund was then moved to other accounts.
A police officer said, “We found his address in Jaipur and sent a team to arrest him. We found out that he used to run a famous restaurant named Tiffin in Jaipur. However, after facing heavy losses in the business for over two-three years, he contacted his friend and they met a man named Kuldeep Banna on Telegram who tasked them to help his associates.”
Police said since Kapoor is involved in multiple cheating cases, he had received information that the police were looking for him and bank officials were freezing his accounts.
The accounts were used for various cyber scams, including investment and OTP fraud.
“He shut his restaurant and took his wife and kids to Mumbai last month. We started looking for him and found that he was in Navi Mumbai. Our team was there for five days as we were trying to zero in on his location. It was on November 10 that he made a call to his wife using his mobile phone. We already had his mobile number. We traced his location and arrested him,” said the officer.
Kapoor told the police that he had opened the account and received ₹4 lakh as commission.
“The commission varied based on the cheated money received from those accounts. After receiving his commission, he transferred ₹2.5 lakh to his associate Fateh Singh. We found that Singh has been staying in different hotels for the past five to six months… After a rigorous search of about 2 days, the team finally caught him in a hotel in Jaipur,” said DCP (southwest) Surendra Choudhary.
He added the two friends were caught with multiple passbooks, cheque books and other bank documents. “Singh’s mobile phone revealed that he was in regular contact with Banna. We suspect Banna is hiding in Indonesia,” he said.
During interrogation, Kapoor told the police that his business had not been doing well for two to three years and he faced heavy losses. Police said he wanted to earn more money and found Banna in a group on Telegram. The two connected and he joined their gang, investigators said.
As of Thursday, police said their involvement is in 20 cyber cheating cases.
“We have sent details to other state police to check if there are more cases where the money trail leads to Kapoor and Singh,” added the first officer.
During investigation, police found that Kapoor earned more than ₹10 lakh in the last eight months as a commission. He and Singh had induced 17-18 more people to open bank accounts and share details with them. The bank details were then passed on to Banna.
Kapoor allegedly used his restaurant’s company account, initially set with a credit limit of ₹1 crore but later increased to ₹5 crore, to launder funds. In the last month alone, this account received ₹4.5 crore, police said.
Police said he closed the restaurant last month since it was running in losses for two years and he had “gathered” enough suppliers to make more accounts and not depend on his company account.
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