Pune Cyber Police Bust Rs 22 Crore Online Trading Scam, Four Arrested

Pune, 10th February 2026: The Pune Cyber Police have arrested four men in connection with a massive online investment scam in which an 85-year-old retired businessman from Hadapsar was allegedly cheated of ₹22.03 crore.

Three of the accused are from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, while one is from Thane. Police said the victim was lured with promises of high returns through online share-trading platforms and fake apps.

Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar said the arrests were made after investigators followed the financial trail.

“Our cyber team tracked the movement of funds across multiple bank accounts and identified the suspects involved in routing the money. That is how we were able to crack this case,” Kumar said.

The operation was led by Senior Inspector Swapnali Shinde along with Inspector Sangeeta Deokate and Sub-Inspectors Snehal Adsule and Sushil Damare.

The arrested men have been identified as Munilkumar Surendra Singh (51), a resident of Ambarnath in Thane, and Akash Chandrashekhar Marathe (27), Lala Keshav Umap (26) and Parmeshwar Dilip Dabhade (23) from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. They were produced before a Pune court on Monday and remanded to police custody till Thursday.

Senior Inspector Shinde said the accused were not the masterminds but acted as “money mules”.

“They allowed their bank accounts to be used for a commission. Large sums were credited into their accounts for a short time and then quickly transferred to other accounts to avoid detection,” she said.

According to the police, about ₹1 crore from the cheated amount was routed through one of the accused’s accounts, while the other three handled transactions ranging from ₹1.5 lakh to ₹2.5 lakh each.

The victim had filed a complaint with the Pune Cyber Police on January 19. Investigators found that between October last year and January 12 this year, the retired entrepreneur transferred money to nearly 150 different accounts, most of which were mule accounts.

Police said the victim had exhausted his life savings and even sold movable and immovable assets after shutting down his business a few years ago.

To carry out the fraud, the scammers used at least 26 mobile numbers, including internet-based calling numbers, three fake web links and a bogus trading application.

“This is the biggest cyber fraud case in terms of money under our jurisdiction so far. We are now working to trace the main operators behind the scam,” Shinde added.