A resident of Baguiati, who had come across an advertisement for an investment scheme on social media, was cheated out of ₹8.3 lakh after he invested in the fraudulent scheme.

Minhajuddin Mandal reported the fraud at Baguiati police station under Bidhannagar commissionerate recently following which a probe was initiated.

The police said they tracked down those involved in the fraudulent scheme in Uttar Pradesh.

The police identified the accused as Shivam Kumar, Nitin Kumar and Sudhir Kumar.

All three were arrested on Wednesday and produced before a court in Uttar Pradesh, police said.

They were brought to Calcutta on transit remand.

The trio were produced before a court in Bidhannagar on Thursday and were remanded in police custody.

An officer of Bidhannagar commissionerate said: “Such advertisements look realistic and very lucrative as they offer double the invested amount as returns. In this case, too, the complainant made investments in good faith. But when he tried to withdraw his money, his account was locked.”

According to sources, in most of these cases, people make small investments and when they start receiving double amount as returns, they start making larger investments.

However, once a large amount is invested, the fraudsters lock the account and siphon off the money.

The police said they were in the process of tracking the proceeds of the crime.

“There could be more people involved in the fraud. We are tracking the accounts through which the swindled money was transferred and then siphoned,” said a senior officer of Baguiati police station.

Earlier, police teams busted several rackets that were based outside Bengal and were found to be duping people in Calcutta.

“Online fraudsters run rackets that are spread across various parts of the country. A person whose account is used to collect the siphoned money never gets the entire amount,” said a senior officer with the experience of handling online frauds.

“The money is transferred through multiple e-wallets and mule accounts across different cities in India. Finally, the money is withdrawn from an account at an ATM kiosk located somewhere far from the place where the victim lives,” he said.