Page 4 - Scams

Fisheries scam: Gujarat HC rejects discharge pleas of two ex-BJP ministers

The Gujarat High Court has rejected the pleas filed by former BJP ministers Parshottam Solanki and Dileep Sanghani seeking their discharge in an alleged Rs 400-crore fisheries scam. The court of Justice Hemant Prachchhak on Friday dismissed the petitions moved by Solanki, Sanghani and one Arjun Suthariya challenging a March 12, 2021, order of a special Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court rejecting their discharge applications in the case. Earlier, the HC had stayed criminal proceedings against the ex-ministers. While rejecting their pleas, the court on Friday extended its stay on criminal proceedings against the former ministers for another four weeks. The alleged scam is from 2008 when Solanki was the minister of state for fisheries and Sanghani was the cabinet minister for agriculture in Gujarat. At that time, a Palanpur-based businessman, Ishaq Maradia, moved the HC alleging that Solanki flouted rules by allotting fishing contracts without following the tendering process. Marad

BJP unit in Karnataka dares Congress govt to probe scams during its rule

The BJP in Karnataka on Saturday challenged the Congress government to order a probe into the '21 scams' that allegedly took place during the last five years, when the saffron party was in power. The party accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah headed government of 'shielding' those involved in the Rs 187 crore scam in the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation. "The Chief Minister has said 21 scams have taken place during the BJP rule. You have been in power for the past 15 months. Why did you take so much time to investigate these scams? We are ready for a probe," Leader of the Opposition Party (LOP) R Ashoka said in a press conference. He said, "The way Rs 88 crore of Valmiki Corporation was 'Khata-Khat' transferred to different bank accounts in Telangana, you should have 'Khata-Khat' investigated the allegations of irregularities against us." Ashoka, a former Deputy Chief Minister, accused Siddaramaiah of trying to put the blame on Valmiki Corporation

MUDA scam, Cauvery water issue may rock K'taka legislature session

Alleged financial irregularities in ST Corporation and the Cauvery river water sharing issue are likely to rock the monsoon session of the Karnataka assembly, which starts from July 15. The assembly is expected to witness some noisy scenes as the opposition BJP is planning to raise the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribe Development Corporation scam worth Rs 187 crore and the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam. Congress MLA B Nagendra, who resigned his position as the Tribal Welfare Minister, has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate while search is on for the Valmiki Corporation chairman and MLA Basavaraj Daddal. The scam came to light after the Accounts Superintendent of the Corporation Chandrasekharan P died by suicide on May 26. The Congress government thereafter constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has so far arrested 11 people in connection with the case. The opposition BJP and the JD(S) have demanded the resignation of Chief Minist

Karnataka BJP leaders on way to protest against MUDA scam detained

Vijayendra and other BJP leaders were whisked away in a bus on the Mysuru Road near Kengeri here, even as they sought to resist police action

Action will be taken in Valmiki Corp scam after SIT report, says K'taka CM

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday said action will be taken and responsibilities will be fixed in connection with an alleged illegal money transfer scam involving a state-run Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation, once the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case submits its report. He also rejected the opposition's demand for his resignation in connection with the scam. "Three investigations are going on -- one by CBI in connection with the involvement of the bank, second by ED and the third by SIT. The SIT is conducting the probe, let the probe report come out," Siddaramaiah told reporters here in response to a question. Replying to a question about the opposition demanding his resignation alleging that such a big scam wouldn't have happened without coming to his notice as he is also the finance minister, he said, "if that is the case, for what has happened in the bank in connection with the case, Nirmala Sitharaman (Union Finance ...

MUDA scam: BJP to hold mega protest in Mysuru on July 12, asks CM to resign

Karnataka BJP will be holding a "mega" protest in Mysuru on July 12 in connection with an alleged fraudulent allotment of sites to land losers by Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA), which involves plots given to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife Parvathi, its president B Y Vijayendra said on Wednesday, and demanded the CM's resignation. The protesters will demand allocation of sites to the poor by withdrawing those distributed illegally, and a CBI probe into the "scam" as the allegations are against the Chief Minister and his family, he said, adding that the BJP will also raise the issue during the coming Assembly session. It is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah's wife in an upmarket area in Mysuru, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been "acquired" by the MUDA. The MUDA had allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land, where MUDA developed a residential ...

ED arrests two in money laundering case linked to Chhattisgarh liquor scam

The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday said it has arrested two liquor businessmen in connection with its money laundering probe into an alleged excise scam of Chhattisgarh that is estimated to have generated over Rs 2,100 crore of slush funds. Arvind Singh and Trilok Singh Dhillon were arrested on July 1 at the central jail in Raipur and later a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court sent them to ED custody till July 6, the federal probe agency said in a statement. The two were lodged in jail after the Chhattisgarh Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) arrested them in the case sometime back. The money laundering case of the ED stemmed from an EOW/ACB FIR filed in January and had named 70 individuals and companies, including former excise minister Kawasi Lakhma, former chief secretary Vivek Dhand and others. The alleged scam, where the ED has pegged the proceeds of crime at Rs 2,161 crore, purportedly took place between 2019-2022 when the Congress was in power in

Online dating scam on the rise; How to prevent yourself from being a victim

Scammers start chatting on dating apps, with fabricated tales of companionship desires to manipulate emotions. Then they plan club meetings where they deceive victims by ordering expensive items

137 Indians arrested in Sri Lanka for cyber scam; 158 mobile phones seized

At least 60 Indian nationals part of a group engaged in online financial scams have been arrested by Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigations Department. They were arrested on Thursday from the Colombo suburbs of Madiwela and Battaramulla and from the western coastal town of Negombo. According to Police Spokesman SSP Nihal Thalduwa, the CID conducted simultaneous raids in these mentioned areas, leading to the seizure of 135 mobile phones and 57 laptops. The crackdown follows a complaint from a victim who was lured into a WhatsApp group promising cash for social media interactions. Further investigation revealed a scheme where victims were coerced into making deposits after initial payments. In Peradeniya, a father-son duo admitted to aiding the fraudsters, Daily Mirror Lanka newspaper reported. Key evidence uncovered during a luxury house raid in Negombo led to the initial arrest of 13 suspects and the seizure of 57 phones and computers. Subsequent operations in Negombo yielded 19 ...

Faking honest woman: Why Russia, China all use faux females to get clicks

When disinformation researcher Wen-Ping Liu looked into China's efforts to influence Taiwan's recent election using fake social media accounts, something unusual stood out about the most successful profiles. They were female, or at least that's what they appeared to be. Fake profiles that claimed to be women got more engagement, more eyeballs and more influence than supposedly male accounts. Pretending to be a female is the easiest way to get credibility, said Liu, an investigator with Taiwan's Ministry of Justice. Whether it's Chinese or Russian propaganda agencies, online scammers or AI chatbots, it pays to be female - proving that while technology may grow more and more sophisticated, the human brain remains surprisingly easy to hack thanks in part to age-old gender stereotypes that have migrated from the real world to the virtual. People have long assigned human characteristics like gender to inanimate objects - ships are one example - so it makes sense that human-like traits .

Phishing scams using QR codes are surging, here's what you should know

The QR code scams are rising significantly in the country. In the last 14 days, over 2000 such emails have been sent to over 1100 customers. Check how these phishing scams work

Govt cracks down on SMS scammers, blacklists principal entities involved

In a major crackdown on SMS scammers, the government has blacklisted 'principal entities' behind SMS headers that were used for sending over 10,000 fraudulent messages over the past three months, according to an official release. The Department of Telecom (DoT), in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), has taken decisive action to protect citizens from potential SMS fraud through the Sanchar Saathi initiative, it said. Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under MHA provided information about the misuse of eight SMS headers for sending fraudulent communications for committing cybercrime. It was noted that more than 10,000 fraudulent messages were sent using these eight headers in the past three months. The principal entities which were the owners of these eight SMS headers have been blacklisted. 'Principal entities' in telecom parlance refer to business or legal entities sending out commercial messages to telecom subscribers through SMS. A header means an ..

Bengal BJP launches portal for candidates affected by school jobs scam

The West Bengal unit of the BJP has set up a dedicated legal support website and a helpline number to assist "genuine" candidates affected by the alleged school jobs scam, a senior party leader said on Thursday. The helpline number and the portal were made public on Wednesday night, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the state unit of the BJP to establish a legal cell for the "genuine" candidates. "As per the instructions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, West Bengal BJP is duty-bound to stand beside the eligible candidates who were affected due to the TMC's illegal recruitment of some people," BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said. The legal support website is 'bjplegalsupport.org' and helpline number is 9150056618, he said. "Once a complaint is received through the helpline number or the website, we will speak to the candidate concerned and seek the status of his or her case, following which we will provide legal help accordingly," he said. While addressing election

Rs 10,000 cr transactions, bogus firms: How police busted multi-cr GST scam

The Dhingra family duped the government of around Rs 68 crore by fraudulently claiming input tax credit on behalf of nine bogus firms

OTP fraud: How govt, SBI Card, telcos are joining hands to fight the menace

OTP fraud exploits the security feature designed to protect online transactions - One Time Passwords (OTPs). Find out how fraudsters operate and what the government is doing to stop them

Rescued 250 Indians; 75 in last 3 months: MEA on fake job scam in Cambodia

"Collaborating closely with Cambodian authorities, it has rescued and repatriated about 250 Indians, of which 75 in just the last three months," Jaiswal said

150,000 pilgrims visiting Ram Mandir daily; Trust cautions against scams

Warning about possible scam attempts, the Trust explained that there is no special arrangement for darshan through any special pass or certain fee

60% of scam cases in UK came from Facebook, Instagram, says Revolut

The London-based fintech found 60% of UK scam cases came from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, dwarfing other platforms and frauds conducted by telephone

CBI registers case against Universal Trading involved in multi-crore scam

There were many cases of fraud and cheating registered against Gowtham Ramesh in Tamil Nadu and Kerala

Trafigura checked traders didn't collude in Gupta fraud case: Report

Trafigura filed a lawsuit against Gupta in February, alleging seven companies that it said were controlled by him carried out a systematic fraud involving nickel cargoes