BENGALURU: The Criminal Investigation Department’s cybercrime division busted an international hawala and money-laundering racket to the tune of Rs 290 crore and arrested nine people, including a Chinese woman and two Tibetans.
The arrests were in different parts of the country, including New Delhi and Surat.
The FIR has named 12 people.
While police said they arrested eight people named in the FIR, the ninth person, Hu Xiolin, 40, is the wife of a suspect Anas Ahmed.
The CID said Xiolin holds a Chinese passport.
They said Xiolin is among the prime suspects.
Ahmed is at large.
Police said Ahmed and Xiolin were residing in Swiss Town, Sadahalli Gate, Devanahalli.
Initially, the two ran an online rummy website and gradually accepted investments from the public through ‘Powerbank’ app.
All investments were deposited in around 900 different bank accounts of Ahmed and others in different states.
The arrests followed a complaint by payment gateway ‘Razorpay’ software private limited.
“The suspects availed payment solutions from Razorpay by representing they are running business in the categories of gaming, social and e-commerce.
But defrauded the company using computers and by deviating from their original category of business in which they had registered.
The suspects routed transactions to collect payments from a different business named Powerbank, an app listed on Google PlayStore,” said SP (cybercrime cell), CID, MD Sharath.