'Money Heist'-Inspired Cyber Criminals Arrested For Conning Noida Businessman

The Uttar Pradesh Cyber Crime police have arrested two men, who were inspired by the popular web series “Money Heist” and contacted people over WhatsApp and Telegram, for allegedly duping a Noida-based businessman of Rs one crore, officials said.

Their arrest has come in the wake of an FIR lodged at the Cyber Crime police station in Noida by a businessman who claimed fraud of Rs one crore with him by unidentified person(s) who made fund transfers from his bank account without his knowledge, the officials said.

Inspector Reeta Yadav, the in-charge of the police station, said two men -- Ritesh Chaturvedi alias Amit Singh and Rishabh Jain alias Prince Thakur -- were arrested on Sunday in connection with the case.

The duo hacked the email id of the complainant's company which was linked with its bank account, used a virtual private network, dark web, SIM cards bought on forged IDs, and used a technique to bypass the OTP sent on a registered mobile number for the fraud, Yadav said.

“Once the accused took over control of the bank account, they transferred Rs one crore into four different bank accounts, which were also made on forged identities. The funds were then converted into cryptocurrencies using an e-wallet on USDT,” the police officer said.

She said Chaturvedi and Jain were taken into custody, they confessed to committing the crime and revealed that they were inspired by a “Money Heist”, a popular crime drama web series.

"The criminals joined more than 15 groups on WhatsApp and Telegram by naming themselves after the characters of the web series. Fake sim cards, and international mobile numbers were used with names from the show. Chaturvedi went by the name 'Professor' while Jain was named 'Rio' on the virtual platforms,” Yadav added.

She said the technical resources used in the May incident have been seized and the FIR was lodged under the Indian Penal Code section 420 (cheating), and under provisions of the Information Technology Act.

A car, a laptop, 11 mobile phones, 25 sim cards, 23 debit cards, among other items have been seized from the duo's possession. Superintendent of Police, UP Cyber Crime, Triveni Singh announced a reward of Rs 25,000 to the police team which has cracked the case, officials said.