Once, Rishabh Sharma sold vegetables to make a living. But when the pandemic hit and he suffered losses, he turned to fraudulent work-from-home schemes, and things took a dark turn.
Rishabh Sharma’s Multi-Crore Fraud Scheme Unveiled: A Dark Transformation
As per The Times of India report, in just six months, Rishabh managed to trick people out of a massive Rs 21 crore. He became a central figure in 37 fraud cases across 10 Indian states and assisted in 855 other scams.
The police arrested him on October 28, thanks to the bank accounts he used for moving money. What’s even more shocking is that he might have been working with criminal groups from other countries, like China and Singapore, to send the money using secret methods, as per the report.
Just a few years ago, Rishabh was a small-time vegetable seller in Faridabad. But when the pandemic hit, he had to shut his business. To support his family, he tried various work-from-home jobs. That’s when he reconnected with an old friend who was already involved in online scams.
His friend gave him a list of phone numbers, and he used them to call random people. Rishabh would offer them fake job opportunities that seemed too good to be true. His last victim was a businessman from Dehradun who lost Rs 20 lakh.
Rishabh Sharma’s Elaborate Scam: Fake Hotel Website, Fake Reviews, and Vanishing Act
Rishabh’s trick was creating a fake website that looked like the Marriott Bonvoy hotel’s website. He offered part-time jobs to write reviews for the hotel group. He pretended to be from Marriott Bonvoy and introduced his victims to his colleague, Sonia, who claimed to work for one of the hotels.
He even made a fake Telegram group for the victims. He asked them to write positive reviews for the hotel and answer questions from fake guests. He gained their trust by paying them Rs 10,000 at first. Then he convinced them to invest more by promising bigger returns. But once people invested a lot of money, he disappeared, and they couldn’t reach him anymore.
The police have charged Rishabh with cheating and other crimes. They discovered that this scam is connected to criminal groups in other countries. These groups hire people in India to open bank accounts for stolen money before sending it secretly to other countries.
Rishabh’s arrest has shown the police how big this problem is. They found that he was involved in multiple cases across 10 states. Dealing with these complicated scams is a big challenge for the authorities as they try to catch those responsible.
