Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 4 (UNI) The Cyber Crime Police here have arrested a key member of a racket that allegedly duped a city-based doctor of over Rs 3.43 crore through an online investment scam promising high returns.
The arrested accused, identified as Dhanush Narayanaswamy, a native of Bengaluru, was taken into custody following a coordinated investigation.
Police said about Rs 1.2 crore was recovered from his bank account, believed to be part of the defrauded money.
According to investigators, the victim, a resident of Ulloor, was lured into transferring funds in multiple installments to different bank accounts after being promised lucrative profits. The gang subsequently converted the money into cryptocurrency and routed it abroad.
Probes revealed that the accused had opened a fake company account in Bengaluru to facilitate the transactions. The victim was initially approached through WhatsApp and Telegram, where the fraudsters exerted pressure to invest more. Realising he was cheated, the doctor lodged a complaint, leading police to trace the financial trail.
Narayanaswamy was later brought to Kerala and produced before the Thiruvananthapuram ACJM Court, which remanded him to police custody.
The investigation was supervised by City Police Commissioner Thomsong Jose and Deputy Commissioner Farash T., with a special team led by ACP Prakash K.S., Inspector Shameer M.K., SI Girish, and CPO Abhijith effecting the arrest.
Police sources said the crackdown comes amid a surge in cyber financial frauds, particularly those involving cryptocurrency and bogus online investment schemes across the state.
