Rajasthan cyber crime busts Rs 500 crore WhatsApp trading fraud, mastermind held from Pune

Jaipur: Rajasthan Police’s Cyber Crime Branch has busted a major interstate gang that allegedly duped investors across the country of around Rs 500 crore in the name of share market investment and trading through a single WhatsApp group. The gang’s alleged mastermind, Yuvraj Satish Mudaliyar (35), a resident of Lohgaon in Pune, Maharashtra, was arrested from Pune and brought to Jaipur on a transit warrant.

According to ADG Police (Cyber Crime) Vijay Kumar Singh, the case originated from a complaint filed by Sendharam Chaudhary at the State Cyber Crime Police Station, alleging he was cheated of Rs 16 lakh after being added to a WhatsApp group called “105 IND STOCKS ADV,” where he was lured with promises of high returns through investment and trading. A technical analysis of the group’s chats and data by police revealed that the same WhatsApp group alone had allegedly been used to defraud people across various parts of the country of nearly Rs 500 crore.

Police said the gang’s method involved sending messages via social media and WhatsApp groups promising large profits from trading at home. To build trust, the accused initially transferred small profit amounts to victims. Once victims invested their bigger savings, the fraudsters would remove them from the WhatsApp group and delete it before disappearing, according to police.

A special team was formed at the State Cyber Crime Police Station in Jaipur under the direction of DIG (Cyber Crime) Shantanu Kumar Singh and the supervision of SP (Cyber Crime) Sumit Meharda. The team analysed dozens of bank accounts, WhatsApp group data and mobile numbers allegedly used by the accused before tracing and arresting Mudaliyar in Pune.

During interrogation, Mudaliyar allegedly told police he ran fake loan companies in Pune — Grace Finance, Positive Balance and Guru Finance — and used the promise of loan approval to collect documents such as PAN cards, identity proofs, bank statements and salary slips from people. He allegedly used these documents to get mule bank accounts opened in their names, paying account holders a commission of Rs 10,000 each. Police said he withdrew the fraud proceeds through ATMs and routed the money through hawala channels to buy USDT cryptocurrency via a Binance wallet, which he then allegedly sold abroad for a 5 percent commission.

The operation was carried out under the leadership of Station House Officer and Deputy SP Gajendra Sharma, with Police Inspector Hariram, Sub-Inspector Ajay Kumar, constables Bhinwaram and Subhash Chahar, and driver constable Subhesingh playing key roles. Police said they are now working to freeze the accused’s Binance wallet and bank accounts and are searching for other members of the gang.