‘Professor’ Arpit and His Band of Bandits Scam People of Rs. 150 Crore In a Twisted Desi Hat-Tip to Netflix’s Money Heist

Delhi Police recently arrested a gang for online scams amounting to Rs. 150 crore. Reportedly, the three-member gang was inspired by the popular Netflix series Money Heist and even changed their names to those of the characters in the show, partly to conceal their identities while scamming people online.

The gang is headed by Arpit, a lawyer by profession, who goes by the name ‘Professor’ after the iconic main character in the show played by actor Álvaro Morte. His accomplices, Prabhat, who has a masters in Computer Science, became ‘Amanda’ and Abbas became ‘Freddy’.

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How they executed the ‘Money Heist’

The trio ran a fairly sophisticated operation mostly out of luxury hotels with the help of just phones and laptops. According to media reports, they posed as stock experts on different social media platforms and WhatsApp groups, encouraging people to invest money in the stock market through them for high returns. They would gain the trust of their investors with small gains, but would block their accounts as soon as large sums were invested. They also intimidated and manipulated people, blocking them from withdrawing money that was invested using their help.

According to police, they have scammed over 300 people in India and may also be involved with a gang of Chinese network of cybercriminals and have earned another Rs. 23 crore from various scams. Investigations are underway for further information on the matter.

Arrested with proof of illegal activities

Delhi Police executed multiple raids in parts of Uttar Pradesh’s Noida and West Bengal’s Siliguri in search of this band of bandits. There is also a possibility of the gang having connections in Assam’s Guwahati.

At the time of arrest, 11 mobile phones, 17 SIM cards, 12 bank passbooks and chequebooks, 32 debit cards, and screenshots of numerous online transactions and WhatsApp chats were recovered from them.