Chennai: State Crime Branch CID dismantled an inter-state gang involved in an elaborate iridium trading scam, arresting six men who impersonated senior Reserve Bank of India officials and defrauded 23 victims across the country of 5.65 crore. The breakthrough came following a complaint from a resident of Coimbatore who was defrauded of 3 crore. A case was registered for offences including cheating, criminal conspiracy, impersonating RBI officials, and forgery using RBI’s name and logo.The gang initially approached victims posing as businessmen dealing in the iridium trade, police said. Victims were falsely told that several crores of rupees were deposited with RBI and would be released upon payment of 10 lakh as processing charges. The fraudsters assured victims that the funds would be credited within two months.After the initial payment was made, victims were taken to New Delhi, where they were introduced to individuals impersonating officials from the foreign exchange department of RBI. The accused had fake RBI ID cards, conducted a fabricated official interview, collected the victim’s fingerprints, and issued forged documents, including credit advices and dispatch orders, to establish credibility. Additional sums were extorted from the victims under various pretexts.Sonu Kumar Dubey and Aashish Kumar of Bihar, Gopal Sekar of Bihar, George Thomas of Telangana, Gulshan Darad of Jharkhand, and Srinivasan of Karnataka were arrested on Feb 9 and 10. At least eight mobile phones with SIM cards and two laptops were seized. All six accused were remanded in judicial custody. Preliminary investigations revealed that the gang defrauded 23 individuals across multiple states.
