The city’s cyber police have arrested three men who had allegedly siphoned Rs 4.41 lakh from the bank account of Pratap Venkat Subrahmanyam Chekuri, vice-president of Adani Power’s project in Godda, from May 14 to May 22 this year.
Among the three is Jayesh Kumar, 29, a native of Godda district, who is a hospitality manager with Adani Power. Jayesh, police said, had secretly accessed debit card details of Chekuri, and also the one-time passwords (OTPs) sent from the bank to Chekuri’s mobile phone.
Jayesh was arrested from Lalpur in Ranchi on Sunday evening. The two other accused, who were arrested from Mumbai on Saturday, were identified as Prashant Darekar and Sarthak Prasad.
Chekuri, who is based out of Godda, had lodged an FIR on June 3 that a large amount was withdrawn from his bank account. The cops formed a team comprising investigating officer Ramnarayan Singh, and technical officers Kumar Saurabh and Kumar Bibhuti, with deputy superintendent of police (cyber) Sumit Prasad monitoring the probe.
The cops were surprised when Chekuri told them he had not received any OTP for the transactions. The cops found that the money had been deposited at accounts in Mumbai. Police also tracked down mobile numbers associated with the accounts and picked up suspects for interrogation. They found Jayesh was in regular touch with the numbers.
“Jayesh came into contact with the Mumbai criminals through Instagram where the Mumbai-based accused run a page called ‘King of Darkweb’ where they display costly mobile phones for sale,” DSP Prasad said on Monday. “They claim to sell these phones and used to cheat people with fake invoices. Jayesh bargained for costly mobile phones and said that he can provide account details that they can use to illegally withdraw money.”
Being a close attendant of Chekuri, Jayesh could access his account details, police said. Chekuri’s phone was protected with a password that Jayesh had seen. He used to secretly pass on the OTPs to the Mumbai men and then quickly delete the bank messages.
The accused were forwarded to Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi under judicial custody on Monday.
DSP Prasad said there are three more suspects involved in the fraud and the cops are hunting for them as well.
