Three arrested from Belagavi for operating mule accounts for cyber criminals

BELAGAVI: In a joint operation, the Belagavi and Chennai police have arrested three cyber criminals from the city on Friday. The arrested are Sarvesh Kini, a BBA graduate, Anil Kolhapur and Rohan Kamble and were taken to Chennai.

According to the police, Sarvesh had offered a commission and got Anil and Rohan to open current accounts in banks in the name of bogus companies with the help of fake documents. Anil and Rohan had handed over the account number, passbook and ATM cards to Sarvesh.

Sarvesh was in constant touch with other cyber fraudsters and had passed on the account numbers of Anil and Rohan to them. The cyber criminals would divert the proceeds of crime to these current accounts and later move the money to other accounts or withdraw it, said Police Commissioner Borase Bhushan Gulabrao.

Sarvesh had offered Rs 60,000 commission for every Rs 1 crore to Anil and Rohan. It is suspected that at least Rs 10 crore was transacted from the current accounts of the duo. Trio have three cases registered against them in the state apart from 27 other cases in different parts of the country.

Gram pachayat member misappropriates funds

A member of the Katakola gram panchayat in Ramdurg taluk has been accusd of misappropriating Rs 31.84 lakh from the Gram Vikas Yojana funds by withdrawing money in the name of different agencies.

It is alleged that Srikanth Korava had forged signatures on 12 cheques to misappropriate the funds and there is suspicion that some others too were involved in the fraud.

After the issue came to light, the villagers settled the issue after Srikanth admitted to misappropriating the funds and gave a written apology. He also promised to return the money in three months, but has not returned the money so far.

Surprisingly, the panchayat development officer and the president seemed hesitant to register a complaint with the police, leading to suspicion.