By The Hindu Bureau

Copyright thehindu

District Police Chief (Kochi City) Putta Vimaladitya on Thursday hinted at the involvement of more Keralites in the alleged online stock trading scam in which a Kochi-based pharma businessman reportedly lost around ₹25 crore. The officer said that it had become clear to the investigators that the woman, G. Sujitha from Kollam, who had been arrested in the case, had a role in the crime.

The money that the complainant had lost was transferred to the accused through different bank accounts. It is not just that the arrested person allowed such transactions through her account, but the transactions were done to the ‘layer 1 account’ involved in the crime. Moreover, the person who contacted her spoke to her in Malayalam,” Mr. Vimaladitya said.

In cybercrime parlance, layer 1 account refers to the first point of contact who directly receives illicit funds from a victim’s account or a fraudulent source.

The police will be exploring new ways to create awareness among the public about the rising instances of cyber frauds, the officer said, adding that the police had learnt from interactions with victims of cyber frauds that the earlier awareness initiatives had not reached them.

“We are trying to enhance awareness measures. Though we had conducted awareness programmes earlier, when we interacted with the victims in several cases, we understood that they were not aware of the threats. So, we are now trying to find other ways to create awareness,” he said.

Meanwhile, sources indicated that a Hyderabad link was suspected in the scam. They added that they had got clues about the involvement of a Hyderabad-based bank account in the scam.