Hyderabad: Sleuths from the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) have arrested four cyber fraudsters, including a city-based software consultant involved in a drone start-up, for duping a city businessman out of 3 crore through a fake stock market investment scheme. The victim, a businessman from North Lalaguda, informed the police that he was added to a WhatsApp group titled “SMC Global Securities” on April 14 by individuals identified as Anu Prita and Ajay. On June 19, the complainant was persuaded to subscribe to an initial public offering (IPO) and was pressured to transfer at least 3 crore for share allocation. Trusting the fraudsters, who assured him that the funds could be withdrawn at any time, the victim transferred the sum in 16 transactions to various bank accounts. Although he was allowed to make a token withdrawal of 10,000, he was later informed that his account had gone into a negative balance. This prompted him to file a complaint with TGCSB on June 28. Investigators traced one bank account in Kerala that had received 77 lakh. Further examination revealed that 8 lakh had been routed to a current account with a leading private bank held in the name of “Drones Spray”, a company started by Srinivas Manubothula (45), a software consultant from Narsingi, for his drone software start-up. Police arrested Srinivas along with his alleged accomplices: Syed Yousuf (45); Chekka Yeshaya (54); and Mohammed Jaber Ahmed (42) All of them were arrested in Hyderabad. “Srinivas had incurred losses in the business he started in 2023 and was seeking investors. His friend Shekar, who supplies bank accounts to cyber fraudsters, introduced him to the others. Srinivas agreed to let them use his bank account in exchange for a 10% commission. They took the SIM card linked to Srinivas’ bank account and, after routing 4.3 crore through it, returned the SIM card along with 2 lakh in cash,” said TGCSB Director Shikha Goel.
