Bhubaneswar: The Cyber Police Thursday arrested two Mumbai residents for allegedly siphoning off Rs 32.81 lakh from a city businessman who mistakenly transferred the money to the formers’ bank account. The duo managed to evade arrest for over a month before being apprehended, said Cyber Police Inspector-In-Charge (IIC) Tereskova Mohapatra. Mohapatra identified the arrested duo as Neha Naresh More and Prashant Shivbahadur Yadav, residents of Mulund (west) and Ghatkopar (west), respectively.
Investigations revealed that the duo had transferred the money to another account before withdrawing a minor chunk for their immediate needs. According to the complaint, the victim, a business executive at Fortis Chemicals Private Limited, had accidentally transferred Rs 32,81,894 to Arya Logistics December 20 while attempting to make a payment to his business partner. Mohapatra said after receiving the amount, Neha, who is the proprietor of Arya Logistics allegedly took her partner Prashant’s help in transferring the amount to his personal account.
Meanwhile, upon realising the mistake, the victim reached out to Prashant to return the money. However, Prashant allegedly refused and blocked the victim’s phone number. Thereafter, the victim lodged a complaint at Cyber Police station. Mohapatra said when the Cyber police personnel reached at Neha’s residence in Mumbai they found her missing. The same was observed in Prashant’s case, she said. Subsequently, the police served a notice under Section 35 (3) of the BNSS Act, resulting in their arrest.