Mumbai: Designer held for helping frauds open bank accounts

A 21-year-old fashion designer was arrested on Wednesday for helping a gang of cyber criminals open bank accounts using her documents which were used to siphon off money from a victim’s bank account. The victim was made to transfer money as part of a selection process for an advertisement and she smelt a rat when the fraudster said cricketer “Virat Kohli” will be part of the advertisement.

In March, the victim had gone to a mall in Lower Parel where she saw children being auditioned and registrations being done for an advertisement. She filled the form thinking her daughter would be selected. On July 13, a fraudster posing as an executive from Reliance Entertainment called her and said her daughter had been selected as a model for Reliance Kids.

On the pretext of refundable costumes, signing an MoU and processing fees, the fraudster took Rs 3.54 lakh. The fraudster then asked for another Rs 3.25 lakh saying Kohli was to feature in the advertisement. The woman suspected something amiss and approached Andheri police. “Based on technical evidence, we nabbed the woman whose bank account was used to transfer the ill-gotten money,” Mahesh Reddy, DCP zone 10, said.

Advertisement

“The woman has more bank accounts and we have blocked all of them and will check if they were misused as well,” senior inspector Santaji Ghorpade said.

“We have recovered Rs 2.26 lakh of the victim by freezing the account,” cyber officer and sub inspector Rohini Jagtap said.