K’taka cops bust `290 crore scam

Bengaluru, June 12: Karnataka police on Saturday said they have busted a `290 crore plus scam that involved duping people through a mobile app after promising attractive interest on investment and two Chinese nationals were among the nine arrested. The scam, aided by shell companies, is linked to money laundering and the suspected kingpin is a Kerala based business man with proximity to Chinese ‘hawala’ operators, they said.

Cyber crime division of CID said it has arrested accused persons, including two Chinese nationals, two Tibetans and five others acting as directors of the companies involved, and a search is on for the rest. A complaint from Razor pay Software Private Limited said accused persons availed ‘payment solutions’ from them,claiming that they are in gaming, social and e-commerce businesses.

They, however, defrauded the company by using computer resources and by deviating from their original, registered line of business, the plaint said.

They started routing their transactions to collect payments from a different business named “Powerbank”, an app listed in Google Playstore, cyber police said in a release.