Thirty seven individuals from six states were arrested by the Cybercrime wing of the Hyderabad police during an out-of-state operations conducted between March 9 and June 14. The coordinated crackdown resulted in refunds totalling to over ₹14.5 crore to victims across India, as investigators unravelled a wide web of cybercrime syndicates.
The arrested suspects were involved in at least 178 cases nationwide, with 74 of them registered in Telangana. State-wise arrests included five from Andhra Pradesh, five from Delhi, two each from Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, three from Rajasthan, two from Haryana, and 18 from Telangana.
The investigation led to the seizure of a range of digital and financial tools used in the commission of crimes, including 74 mobile phones, 156 cheque books, 11 debit cards, 22 SIM cards, eight bank passbooks, five rubber stamps, 115 fake company seals, 11 laptops, two OTP detectors, QR code scanners, and forged identity documents.
Among the cases detected, one involved an investment fraud in which scammers posed as representatives of Barclays Wealth Management and UP Asset Allocation Z06, luring a victim via Facebook and WhatsApp to invest ₹1.98 crore in bogus trading platforms. The victim, misled by fake returns displayed on a fraudulent website, was later asked to pay additional sums under false pretexts such as tax and conversion charges. Two men from Uttar Pradesh - Nikhil Kaushik of Noida and Amar Sharma of Kanpur - were arrested in this connection, both accused in at least 47 cases across India.
