The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against five accused and unknown others on the allegations of tech fraud to the tune of USD 400,000 committed upon a US citizen.
The accused have been identified as Praful Gupta, Sarita Gupta, Kunal Almadi, Gaurav Pahwa and Rishabh Dixit. Rishabh is a resident of Kanpur while all other lives in Delhi. According to a statement from CBI, it was alleged that when the victim was working on her laptop, it was hacked. She contacted the number displayed on her laptop screen, the hacker impersonated an employee of a Multi-National Software company and misguided her that there were some wire transfers from her retirement account and suggested her to contact Fidelity Investments.
It was further alleged that she called on the given number, the hacker took control of her laptop and induced her to transfer an amount of US$ 400,000 from her Fidelity Account to her First State Bank Account.
It was also alleged that the hacker fraudulently opened an Okcoin account on behalf of the victim and made her transfer the said amount of USD 400,000 to the said Okcoin account in June 2022.
After converting the amount of USD 400,000 in the form of cryptocurrency, the hacker further allegedly transferred the said amount to the Crypto Accounts of the accused persons.
Searches were conducted at the residential and official premises of the accused in New Delhi, Kanpur and recovered incriminating material in the form of laptops, mobile phones, hard disks etc.
Further investigation is underway.
