Bhubaneswar According to a senior police officer here on Monday, an Odisha MLA and former minister of information technology has lost 1.4 lakh rupees to cyber theft in around 1.5 months.
In relation to the case, the police detained seven individuals, three from Tamil Nadu and four from Karnataka.
However, the former minister said that a buddy had been using his trading account and had lost the money, which is why he filed a police report in January.
According to the police officer, the accused and their colleagues used to pretend to be trade analysts in order to get others to invest money in shares, initial public offerings, and other trading activities by promising them large profits.
The accused acquired ₹1.40 crore from the complainant falsely between November 13, 2024, and January 1, 2025, according to the Crime Branch’s cybercrime team, which conducted the inquiry, he added.
“On January 13 this year, we received a complaint that cyber fraudsters swindled ₹1.4 crore from the complainant through a mobile app,” Crime Branch IG Sarthak Sarangi told a press conference.
However, he declined to identify the complaint, claiming that doing so would interfere with the inquiry.
According to police sources, the complainant is an IIT graduate, a current MLA, and a former minister of information technology.
BJD MLA and ex-IT minister Tusharkanti Behera, however, told reporters: “My friend has been using my trading account and lost the money to cyber fraud. I have no such direct knowledge regarding the fraud,”
Bank accounts in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, West Bengal, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, and Maharashtra have received the funds, according to Sarangi.
Seven persons were taken into custody by crime branch teams that were dispatched to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala during the first phase.
“Very soon we will send our teams to Hyderabad, West Bengal and Delhi to arrest other accused persons in this case,” the police officer added.
The Crime Branch has frozen ₹15 lakh in the accused’s bank accounts and recovered ₹4 lakh from them thus far.
According to Sarangi, a Navy commander and a university vice-chancellor have recently fallen prey to cyber scams.
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