Deepfake scammer accused of swindling retired Coal India official a compulsive gambler

Kozhikode: Kozhikode city cybercrime police have zeroed in on the accused who defrauded Rs 40,000 from a retired Coal India official using a deepfake video call -- a compulsive gambler from a well-to-do family in Ahmedabad.

The accused, Kaushal Shah (42), hails from Usmanpura, an affluent residential locality in central Ahmedabad.

"He is the son of a former assistant public prosecutor and comes from a well-off family," said Kozhikode city cybercrime station house officer - inspector Dinesh Koroth. But importantly, he is addicted to online gambling, said the officer.

Koroth returned from a 10-day investigation in Gujarat where he found that all the tools and technologies needed for scamming people online are freely available in the open market.

Several cases against Shah

Shah, a BCom graduate, is facing several cases of cheating and fraud, said the inspector. He was forced to leave his house in 2018 because of the cases. The family had also objected to him borrowing from friends, relatives, and neighbours to gamble, he said. The family filed a missing person complaint with the police in 2019 when he did not return home.

But police found that in these years, he had established himself as a seasoned scammer defrauding people. "When he left home, he was a BCom graduate. We don't know if he did some course after that," said the inspector.

In the Kozhikode case, the retired official of Coal India got a WhatsApp call on July 9, 2023, from a person who identified himself as a former colleague from the same company in Andhra Pradesh.

The caller's voice sounded similar to the colleague, the complainant told the police. He shared photographs of him and his wife and enquired about the Kozhikode man's wife and children.

Then the caller asked him to transfer Rs 40,000 to his wife's sister's bank account immediately because she was scheduled to undergo emergency surgery in Mumbai.

The retired official in Kozhikode was aware of online fraud and wanted to verify before giving the money. So, he made a WhatsApp video call and the person attended it. "He held the phone very close to his face, which appeared to be his former colleague. The call lasted only for a few seconds," Inspector Koroth said.

Police suspect the caller used deepfake technology to fool the victim. "It is clear that the scammer had invested a lot of time in identifying his victim and working on the back story," he said.

The caller also explained his hurry by saying he was in Dubai airport and was rushing to board the next flight to the US, where he stays now.

The Kozhikode man transferred Rs 40,000 to the Google Pay account shared by his former "colleague".

But soon afterwards, he got a call again from the same number asking for Rs 35,000. "That's when the complainant realised he was being duped," the officer said.

He checked his friends and found that they had also got similar calls asking for money. The official then called the former colleague's phone number saved in his contact list and got confirmation he was duped.

Kozhikode city cybercrime police found that the Rs 40,000 went to an account with the Jio Payment Bank at Usmanpura. The account belonged to Kaushal Shah.

From that account, the money was transferred to an account with Ratnakar Bank Limited (RBL). That account belonged to an online gaming platform based in Goa.

A cyber police team led by Inspector Koroth headed for Ahmedabad. On reaching there, they found the SIM used to call the complainant in Kozhikode belonging to a farmer in Lindi, a village 115 km from Ahmedabad in Mahesana district. "We went there too," Koroth said.

On reaching there, the farmer said he bought an Airtel SIM from a roadside vendor a couple of years ago by giving his ID card. Police suspect the vendor might have sold the ID card to racketeers who buy SIMs in bulk.

Fraudsters often buy SIMs from them. Similarly, bank accounts, opened using stolen IDs and SIM numbers, are also up for sale. "They are all available in Telegram," a cybercrime investigator had told Onmanorama.

Police found Kaushal Shah used many SIMs and owned several bank accounts, some of them in Andhra Pradesh, too. "He has bases in Goa, Mumbai, and Gujarat and he frequently shuttles between these three places," he said.

As of now, the police suspect that Shah is a loner. "We have not got any evidence of him working with a team," said the inspector. Police are relying on tech to track him down.