hyderabad chinesebacked online investment fraud mastermind prakash mulchandbhai prajapati has been on the radar of hyderabad cyber crime police since 2021 despite a notice in 2021 and subsequent arrest in 2022 prajapati persisted with his alleged fraudulent schemes leading to 600 first information reports firs against him in 2023 alone confirmed hyderabad assistant commissioner of police cyber crime kvm prasad prajapatis luck ran out again and he landed in the police dragnet recentlyprajapati was given a notice in 2021 for his alleged role in an investment fraud but he claimed he was unwell and got himself admitted to a hospital in ahmedabad as a result hyderabad police had served a 41 crpc notice and returned without taking his custody as covid19 was at its peaka recent surge in complaints resulted in 12 firs lodged against prajapati in just one day on saturday reflecting the scale of his operationsduring the probe it came to light that prajapati exploited aadhaar cards of three hyderabad residents altering their address to a house in lucknow and utilizing this to open 45 bank accountsin the initial stages prajapati used local sim cards activated in india which enabled him to operate from abroad particularly in dubai on roaming later he switched to mobile phonesharing apps which come at no cost to see otps while transferring money prasad disclosedaided by his chinese handlers prajapati managed to amass daily earnings ranging between rs 1015 lakh thanks to a 3 commission on his fraudulent activitiesthe illgotten money was reportedly transferred into a cryptocurrency account controlled by prajapatis chinese associates frequent travels to dubai and china were discovered indicating facetoface meetings with his handlers and highlighting the international network of fraudinvestigations revealed the extent of international money transfers associated with the fraud were traced to china singapore malaysia vietnam and philippines dubai emerged as a hub for the operational ip addresses linked to fraud activitiesthe modus operandi employed by the fraudsters targeted individuals through whatsapp luring them with parttime online jobs such as liking youtube videos or providing google ratings victims were deceived into believing they were earning salaries from these tasksin the initial stages fraudsters test the gullibility of the people with a particular focus on software engineers who often fall prey to such schemes police explainedonce ensnared victims were told to collect money through a telegram link leading them to register on specific domains and provided with a dashboard to invest in buying and selling products online the fraudulent scheme led victims to invest amounts ranging from thousands to lakhs of rupees but profits presented were virtualprajapati reportedly executed his plan with the help of locals who facilitated the diversion of money overseas through their bank accounts officer said