Seventh suspect arrested in 1.6cr share fraud case linked to Hingoli bank officials; cryptocurrency angle being probed

Pune: The city's Cyber police on Tuesday said they have arrested a seventh suspect in the Rs1.6 crore online share trading fraud case, in which the director and technical officer of a Hingoli-based multi-state cooperative bank and four others were nabbed a week ago.
The latest accused has been identified as Kondhwa resident Dinesh Rajpurohit (43). It was established that he collected money generated from frauds from the two arrested bank officials, which were later converted into cryptocurrencies.
Senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of the Cyber police said, "We arrested Rajpurohit on April 10; he was remanded in police custody till April 17. During questioning, he told us that he was in touch with Cambodia-based handlers for the past one-and-a-half years."
Between March 27 and April 5 this year, the Cyber police arrested the cooperative bank's director Govind Sanjay Suryavanshi (22) and technical officer Rohit Sushil Kambhoj (32), both residents of Wagholi. The other arrested men are Ketan Umesh Bhiware (27) of Kharadi, Nikhil alias Kishor Satav (32) and Babarao alias Omkar Bhawar (22), both from Wagholi, and Jabbarsingh Arjunsingh Purohit (45) of Dharavi.
"Purohit is a cryptocurrency trader. He was close to Suryavanshi and Kambhoj, and was in touch with Rajpurohit. To purchase cryptocurrencies from his handlers in Cambodia, Rajpurohit used to get money from mule bank accounts used by Suryavanshi and Kambhoj. Details of these bank accounts were managed by Purohit. These mule bank accounts contained money from cheated online share market fraud victims," said Shinde.
He added, "Rajpurohit studied till HSC and ran a pharmacy shop in Kondhwa."
Apart from Hingoli, where the cooperative bank is registered, it has a branch in Kharadi with close to 300 account holders. "Suryavanshi and Kambhoj were operating many mule bank accounts, including many in their own bank," Shinde said, adding, "Instead of keeping money in mule accounts, which can be frozen by the police, the racketeers invested all the money generated from fraud in cryptocurrencies. The racketeers targeted many victims across India and we have established their involvement in about 30 share trading frauds across multiple states. We identified some individuals who are also in touch with the Cambodia-based handlers. We are investigating further."