Ahmedabad: The State Cyber Crime Cell of CID Crime, Gandhinagar, arrested eight individuals from Mehsana district for their alleged involvement in withdrawing and laundering money obtained through cyberfraud. The arrests are part of an intensified crackdown on organised financial cybercrime in Gujarat.Acting on technical analysis and intelligence gathered through the ‘Pratibimb Portal’ of the Union home ministry, authorities traced suspicious banking activity related to fake investment scams. Victims were lured with promises of high returns through “offline trading” and stock market tips. Once the victims invested in the schemes, no returns were paid, resulting in accusations of cheating and breach of trust.Investigations into the complaints revealed that the accused opened multiple bank accounts under different names, withdrew the defrauded money using cheques and ATMs and funnelled nearly Rs 64.30 lakh through these accounts.The accused operated under the name ‘Prime Solutions’ in Mehsana. Raids were conducted at four different locations in the district, leading to the arrest of the accused. Interrogation revealed that they used their own and friends’ bank accounts to collect and withdraw the illicit funds.From the accused, officials recovered 80 chequebooks and passbooks from different banks, 16 debit cards, 12 PAN cards, 11 Aadhaar cards, 6 voter ID cards, nine mobiles, two enterprise registration documents, one rent agreement and eight RC books. All eight accused were booked for cheating, breach of trust, and criminal conspiracy under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The case is being further investigated to trace additional links and beneficiaries involved in the cyberfraud network, officers said.
