Kasaragod: Kasaragod police arrested a food delivery and bike taxi driver in Jodhpur for allegedly being part of a cyber gang that defrauded a 42-year-old doctor of ₹2.23 crore by luring him with part-time online jobs. Sunil Kumar Jhanwar (24), the eighth accused, was apprehended from Mathura Das Mathur Hospital, where he was attending to his father, who had suffered a stroke, said Sub-Inspector Sreedasan M V, heading a four-member extradition team.​

The officers, including ASI Prashanth and senior civil police officers Narayanan and Dileesh, had been searching for Jhanwar in Jodhpur for eight days. After the fraud, he moved to a different place under the Bhagat Ki Kothi police Station in Jodhpur. But that rented house was found locked. The Kasaragod team found Jhanwar 45 minutes before the only weekly train was scheduled to leave at 11.30 pm.

​The final two days of their search were spent inside the sprawling 99-acre hospital complex. "We were discreet to avoid attracting attention. When we located him, his relatives and friends tried to block us from taking him into custody," Sreedasan said. Officers from the local Shastri Nagar Police Station came to their rescue and helped them reach the railway station on time, with the accused.​

The victim doctor, originally from Vellore in Tamil Nadu, had transferred ₹18 lakh to Jhanwar's bank account. Jhanwar studied only up to Class XII. The delivery man used three cheques to withdraw the funds from his account with Axis Bank in Jodhpur. "When we arrested him, he had no money in the account," the sub-inspector said.

The investigation, earlier headed by the District Crime Bank, is now with District Special Branch DySP Sunil Kumar M.​

Under the District Crime Branch DySP T Uthamdas, the team had arrested two accused: Muhammed Noushad A T (45), an alleged serial cybercriminal from Payyannur, and Harshavardhan R (21) of Mattancherry in Kochi. Noushad, though not the mastermind, is a crucial link in the scam, managing several bank accounts used to launder the ill-gotten money. He recruited unsuspecting individuals -- mainly students and homemakers -- convincing them to open bank accounts in exchange for commissions.

Harshavardhan, a recruit of Noushad, opened 10 bank accounts that received ₹40 lakh, said DySP Uthamdas. Kerala High Court Judge P V Kunhikrishnan granted anticipatory bail to Harshavardhan on January 27. Noushad was arrested on February 13.

In March, the investigating team traced ₹10.79 lakh to a UCO Bank account with the Parliament Street Branch in Delhi. The money was recovered and returned to the doctor through court proceedings, said DySP Uthamdas.

According to the complaint, filed with Kasaragod Cyber Police Station, cyber fraudsters contacted the doctor over Telegram offering home-based part-time jobs and reviewing businesses and products online. The doctor put his wife up for the job. 

Initially, the scamsters paid her but soon they started demanding money upfront to offer lucrative reviewing jobs. They added the doctor to an exclusive Telegram group, supposedly for "premium" job offers. The 30-odd members in the group all claimed to be earning well through the same scheme. In reality, they were fake profiles controlled by the scammers.

In 19 days -- from May 17 to June 4 -- the doctor transferred ₹2,23,94,993 to 18 accounts in various states, including Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Delhi. To gain his trust, the scamsters returned ₹87,125 to the doctor. Kasaragod's cyber police are now on a mission to recover the remaining ₹2,23,07,868. Some of the money was traced back to accounts in Kochi. The money received in Harshavardhan's accounts was allegedly collected by Noushad. Police said they would seek the custody of Sunil Kumar Jhanwar to understand his role in the scam and identify his collaborators.