Mumbai: A teenager was arrested by the Cyber Police in connection with a case where a computer engineer was cheated of Rs 21 lakh in a task fraud combined with a cryptocurrency trading scam. Police said the teen accused, Shaad Chauhan, received a portion of the defrauded sum into his bank account and withdrew it.Chauhan has used the same mule bank account to receive and withdraw Rs 8 lakh so far, and the police are verifying the source of this income.The complainant holds a BTech degree in computer science. He currently works as a business analyst with a private firm.On June 3, he received a text from an unknown number on WhatsApp with an offer to make some extra money by fulfilling certain tasks online. The first task was to like a food recipe video on YouTube and share its screenshot. Once the complainant agreed to do so, he was contacted on Telegram by one Vishnu Sharma. On liking the food recipe video, the complainant received Rs 150 in his bank account. He was then asked by Sharma to join a Telegram group for receiving further tasks.On completing the next five to six tasks, the complainant received Rs 600 in his bank account. The tasks comprised giving movie reviews online. By now, the complainant trusted Sharma. Next, Sharma sent him a link to another Telegram group that had more than 200 members. In this group, the members were required to pay money if they wanted to receive further tasks.The complainant paid the money and completed the tasks. He was asked to connect with Anil Wadhva for his commission. Wadhva sent him a link for a bitcoin trading portal and asked for his Aadhaar card copy for registration. The complainant created his login and password on the portal and noticed various tabs on the portal, such as balance, profit, recharge, order record, and withdrawal. Between June 3 and June 8, he transferred Rs 21.16 lakh to the portal for bitcoin trading. But he was unable to withdraw any amount. The fraudsters kept demanding more money under various pretexts, such as helping to recover his account and technical errors. Eventually, the complainant realised he had been taken for a ride and complained to the North Region Cyber Police.
