Mumbai Police have arrested a man in connection with a case wherein he defrauded investors, promising them huge returns on investments in cryptocurrency mining schemes. The incident came to light after a Matunga-based school teacher approached the local police station to file a complaint claiming to be defrauded of $3,317.62 under an investment scheme. Reportedly, the accused, who has been identified as Mohammad Jabir, 31, a resident of India's southern state Karnataka, developed a smartphone app for the crypto scam.
Police said the teacher first received a message on his mobile phone that gave investors assurance of daily returns of $26.85. Seeing this, the complainant downloaded the application 'Arohash' on his phone from Google Play Store. Soon he was contacted by a person named Arav Khurana, who told him about the investment scheme, according to reports published by the local media.
Putting his trust into the mining scheme, the man invested $26.85 (Rs. 2000) at first, after which he received the promised amount right away. Thinking it was a real, and safe investment, the man went on to invest $3,317.62 (Rs 2.47 lakh). However, a few days later, the app disappeared from the Google Play store as Jabir alleged that the app was facing some technical issues.
Later Jabir deleted the WhatsApp group and also refused to refund any money to the investors. Realising that he has been duped, the teacher approached the police to report the incident.
After the arrest on Friday, police found a bank passbook, three debit cards and a mobile phone in Jabir's possession. Jabir had used fake IP addresses of China and Singapore to lure his victims. Police has also found details of financial transactions over $2,68,37,260.00 (Rs. 200 crores) in different back accounts. One account alone shows transactions of $2,53,65,024.72 (Rs. 189 crore), according to TOI.
