TL police bust online forex trade racket; arrest 4 from Mumbai

Four people were arrested from Mumbai for allegedly cheating 120 people of about Rs 5 crore across the country by offering huge profits by way of online forex trading, Police said today.

Acting on a complaint by a city-based woman, police arrested Shahnawaz Abdul Rehman Lakhani, a native of Surat, and three others from Mumbai, a release from Cyberabad Police said here.

Shahnawaz initially worked as telecaller with an online forex trading firm and subsequently started his own office in Mumbai by appointing tele callers in July last year.

The modus operandi of the accused is to collect clients data from various data providers and send bulk messages to them by assuring huge profits in online forex trading in a short time, they said.

They then open online trading accounts and send user ID and login passwords to the clients, who fall for their offers.

Police said the clients will have access only to view the account operated by the accused, but cannot directly trade.

"Initially the clients were shown some profits in their accounts, but after collecting huge amounts, the accused used to delete the accounts and cheat the clients," the release said.

As per investigations, the accused allegedly duped as many as 120 people from different parts of the country ofaround Rs.5 crores, it said.

The woman from the city had invested over Rs 18 lakh and initially she noticed profits being shown in her account every day. But recently, she found that only a balance of Rs 1.18 lakh in her account.

When she sought return of her money, including profits, the accsued switched off their phones.