The Balaghat district police have busted a gang that cheated locals of money by promising to double their cash. The police, in major action on Tuesday evening, arrested 11 members of the gang and recovered Rs 10 crore cash, documents, and gadgets from its possession.
With the enormous amount of cash seized, the investigators had to rope in the entire staff for counting the currency notes recovered from the swindlers. Such cases of financial fraud keep cropping up in news in the state but investigators claimed that this is perhaps first such major haul in the recent times.
Having lodged three separate FIRs in Kirnapur and Lanjhi tehsils in Balaghat, the police arrested 11 persons on charges of duping locals of huge sums of money. Three others named in the case are absconding, said the police.
In addition to Rs 10 crore, 16 mobile phones and money transaction evidences were seized from the fraudsters.
The gang extended its target to natives of neighbouring Maharashtra who also deposited huge amount of cash by mortgaging their ornaments and other valuables.
The investigators claimed that the gang was also involved in bitcoin trade and suspected that the entire scam could be well beyond Rs 100 cr. Superintendent of Police Sameer Saurabh has formed various teams to nab the remaining culprits.
The accused are—Somendra Kakrayne, Ramesh Mansure, Rakesh Mansure, Pradip Kankrayne, Hemrak Amador, Lalit Vaishnav, Rahul Bapure, Ramchandra Kalbele, Ajay Tidke, Shivjeet Chile and Manoj Sonekar.
While Somendra led to recovery of Rs 5 crore, his associate Hemraj helped police seize Rs 3 crore and another accused—Ajay Tidke was found in possession of Rs 2 crore.
The police on the basis of preliminary probe have claimed that the gang operates through an inter-state network.
Scores of depositors had gathered outside the police station in Balaghat on Tuesday and were only pacified when the police told them about the recovery of huge sum from the perpetrators and promised them to refund their sums after due legal formalities.
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