Bengaluru: A city businessman looking to install solar plants recently fell prey to cybercriminals, not once but twice. Believing the claims of an online group, he initially transferred Rs 1.5 crore and then, in his desperate bid to recover it, lost an additional Rs 12.5 lakh to another gang of scamsters.In Feb, he had transferred Rs 1.5 crore in different instalments to an online group after he came across their offer of installing solar plants. He tried to get legal aid after realising he was conned. After searching online, he found a firm, ‘Quickmoto Legal Service’, and the representatives promised help to get back his lost money. For this, they made him shell out Rs 12.5 lakh. It was only later he discovered that he was taken for a ride again.Following a complaint, police swung into action and on Sunday, arrested the prime accused who was involved in setting up a fake legal assistance office at Kasturi Nagar. Tufail Ahmed alias Chota Ahmed Mubarak, 27, a resident of Kothanur in Tamil Nadu, has an engineering degree in electronics and communication. Tufail’s elder brother, who is based in Dubai, is the kingpin of the racket. “We found that ‘Quickmoto Legal Service’ had no office in the city. The accused was running a call centre, under the name India Legal Service, in a house in Kasturi Nagar. Several tele-callers were employed at Kasturi Nagar, using a communication platform called Zoiper-5 to contact victims via VoIP calls. Tufail’s elder brother conspired with others to establish multiple fake companies under different names to facilitate online scams,” an officer said.The tele-callers assured victims of recovering their lost money and collected payments by online mode, thereby cheating unsuspecting victims, the officer said, adding, “Soon, we’ll arrest some tele-callers, as there’re also aware of the scam.”Police commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh said the businessman had filed a complaint in the cybercrime portal. Central crime branch sleuths, led by joint commissioner of police (crime) Ajay Hilori and deputy commissioner of police Raja Imam Kasim led the investigation.
