38-year-old man arrested over bitcoin fraud in Tiruvallur district

MADURAI: A 38-year old man has been arrested by a special team of Thoothukudi police after being charged with cyber fraud. The team located his hideout at Kakkalur, a village from where he resided, in Tiruvallur district on Thursday.

According to sources, a laptop and two cell phones were seized from the accused who has been identified as E Obeth Paul of Tiruvallur.”

Investigations carried out by the Cyber Crime Wing revealed that P Ramar (48), a resident of Vilathikulam, Thoothukudi district, was exposed to a fake advertisement on his Facebook account after which he clicked a link to access details about the advertisement and contacted a WhatsApp number displayed on the advertisement.

Ramar was then lured to invest Rs 12,10,740 in the fake advertisement of bitcoin investment through a web portal ‘Protonforex.com’. After having learnt that he was cheated, Ramar lodged a complaint through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.

Based on this, Thoothukudi SP, L. Balaji Saravanan formed a special team to nab the accused. Initially, on February 3, S Karunakaran (32) of Chinniampalayam, Coimbatore was arrested by the team, sources said.