Khatima doctor duped of Rs 81 lakh in online trading scam, accused arrested in Delhi

PIONEER NEWS SERVICE/Dehradun

The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) arrested a cyber criminal, Sushil Kumar from Delhi for allegedly duping a doctor of Khatima, Udham Singh Nagar district, of Rs 81 lakh under the pretext of online investment in the share market. He is also linked to cyber fraud cases reported in 13 states across India, as per the deputy superintendent of police of cyber crime police station of STF Ankush Mishra. He said that the accused used WhatsApp messages from unknown numbers to lure the victim into investing through an online trading platform. The victim was added to multiple WhatsApp groups such where he was trained to invest in shares and IPOs through an application named Canyon Assets. The application, listed on the Google Play Store, falsely showed profit against the victim’s investments, prompting him to invest further, he said. Mishra said that after the victim lodged a complaint in March 2025, the cyber crime unit of STF started an investigation. The team analysed banking transactions, WhatsApp messages, registered mobile numbers and data from service providers and Meta. Technical and digital evidence identified Sushil Kumar, a resident of South West Delhi, originally from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, as the prime suspect. He was arrested in Delhi on Wednesday.

Mishra said that during the arrest, police recovered a mobile phone, Aadhaar card, PAN card, nine debit cards, six SIM cards and one cheque used in the crime. The DSP said that preliminary questioning revealed that Kumar operated several bank accounts where transactions worth crores of rupees took place in a few months. He used these accounts to transfer the defrauded money immediately after it was received. The investigation in this case continues and STF is probing the possibility of a larger network involved in similar fraudulent operations, Mishra added.