12 Kolkata: After months of investigation into the Rs 245 crore investment fraud linked to about 2,500 fake companies, the cybercrime wing of Bengal Police on Friday submitted the charge sheet in court, naming 17 persons, including chartered accountants, software engineers, and bank officials. Most of the arrests were made in Nov and Dec. The 48-page-long charge sheet, which was prepared within 30 days of arrests citing 120 witnesses, unearths the gang operated across five nations. The main accused were identified as Abhishek Bansal alias Rahul and Vivek Sah. Special public prosecutor, Bivas Chattejee, claimed in court that the case was ‘akin to economic terrorism.'
The accused are charged under IPC sections 419/420/467/468/471/472/406/413/409/120B, pertaining to cheating, forgery, and criminal forgery. Cops claimed one-third of the fake companies are based out of just three addresses in central Kolkata. "As the accused persons stated, they operated the crime from abroad by hiding their own identity in order to evade the legal agency... Taking advantage of this technology and the unawareness of people, the accused opened bank accounts using their identity in lieu of money and kept control of their mobile banking/internet banking to siphon the cheated money," the chargesheet states, adding forged rubber stamps and signboards in the name of different non-existent companies were used for opening of the bank accounts. Trade licence and P Tax or MSME documents in the name of fake companies were created under the ‘leadership' of Agarwal and Anurag Singh, cops claimed.
"During the time of opening mule current bank accounts, the accused registered mule SIM cards and email IDs, which they received from Abhishek Bansal and Amit Jindal through their WhatsApp group," sources said. One of the accused, Ravi Kumar Agarwal alias Amit Jindal, operated the crime from Dubai, while co-accused Mayank Chowdury operated the racket from Sri Lanka, the source added.
The current accounts of the fake companies were used for daily transactions worth between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore, cops said. The gang recruited software engineers, offering them huge salaries and incentives, for developing spoof trading and investment apps, cops claimed.Investigators report that some bank employees were also involved in this scheme. A staff member from a private bank in Nagerbazar was arrested earlier. It has emerged that employees from other private banks were also involved in the fraud. Several mobile service providers are also under scanner for supplying a large number of ‘pre-activated' SIM cards using fake documents.