2 Cyber Crooks Operating From Cambodia Arrested By Rourkela Police; Know Their Modus Operandi

Rourkela: Two interstate cyber crooks have been arrested by Rourkela Police for their alleged links with international scamming companies, which duped people of over Rs 200 crore.

The accused duo, Harish Kurapati alias Harry and Naga Venkata Sowjanya Kurapati alias Lisa, were brought to Odisha after being detained by Bureau of Immigration at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad, while returning from Cambodia.

They have been booked under sections 419/420/465/467/471/120B of IPC and 66C/66D of IT Act).

According to reports, the arrests were part of the investigation during which Rourkela police in January had busted an international online crime syndicate and arrested six members Rourkela, Bhilai, Raipur in Chhattisgarh, and Ludhiana in Punjab after the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) linked more than 210 complaints from across the country to the cross-border gang. They had fleeced victims of at least Rs 15 crore and received payments through Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange where transactions worth at least 30,000 US dollar tether (~ Rs 24.93 lakh) was made in an account of an accused. The probe was initiated on the basis of a complaint lodged by a central government officer on December 30, 2023, regarding cyber fraud to the tune of Rs 67.70 lakh.

Harry and Lisa were detained following a lookout circular issued on the request of Rourkela Police against 16 people. “The accused duo first went to Cambodia through an Indian agent and joined a scamming company in Phnom Penh in April 2023. They used to collect the profiles from various dating apps like Happn and chat with them posing as girls and later convinced their targets to invest in cryptocurrency trading,” a police release said.

In October 2023, Harry and Lisa joined another cyber fraud company and created a fake online application which was used to show Indian stock market fluctuations. “The application was simulated in such a manner that the client would think he had invested in actual stocks while the money was routed to the scamsters accounts. After giving initial returns, the app stopped pay-out and subsequently fraud was conducted. To acquire more customers, Lisa would also send gifts to potential investors, who subsequently became victims,” it added.

During interrogation, Lisa confessed to having duped more than 30-40 people, which included Rs 2 crore defrauded for a single victim.

Police revealed that owners of the scamming companies were Chinese nationals, who employed Malaysian or Cambodian people as translators to communicate with others. People from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, India and Cambodia worked as agents, who then recruited people from India for cyber fraud. Once they reached Cambodia, the scam companies took away their passports and instructed them to work 12 hours a day. Those who refused were subjected to physical assault, solitary confinement and even electric shocks.

“Many Indians hired by the scamsters for such scams are trapped there,” it said, adding that Rourkela Cyber Police is making efforts to trace and bring them back to India through proper channels.