YouTuber held for Rs 82L fraud against retd EPFO official
Kanpur: The cybercrime unit of Kanpur Police arrested the mastermind of a gang that defrauded a retired Employee Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) officer of Rs 82.30 lakh. The accused, identified as Dheeraj Paswan of Parasa village in Deoria district, was arrested on Friday.
According to Inspector Sunil Verma of the cybercrime station, the gang initially came into contact through the online game Free Fire, and later began orchestrating digital frauds using methods they allegedly learned from YouTube.
The victim, Vinod Kumar Jha, a resident of Panki in Kanpur, filed a complaint on April 6 after discovering the massive fraud. Acting on the complaint, police earlier arrested three gang members- Raubi Kumar, Jitendra Kumar, and Ravindra Singh- from Aligarh.
Their interrogation led to the identification and eventual arrest of Paswan, who is believed to be the key accused behind the financial transactions.
Paswan allegedly created and managed a Spice Money account to facilitate laundering of the stolen money. Funds were routed through various bank accounts, invested in cryptocurrency and the stock market, and later divided among the group.
Police also recovered an iPhone and several mobile phones from Paswan. Interestingly, he also maintained a YouTube channel with over three lakh subscribers, where he posted educational and entertainment content. Investigators said he tried to sell the channel after becoming involved in the fraud.
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