Visakhapatnam Police Bust Illegal Payment Gateway Scam

Visakhapatnam: Visakhapatnam city police have dismantled Peace Pay, an illegal payment gateway aggregator, following a tip-off from central agencies.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, city police commissioner Sankabrata Bagchi disclosed that seven individuals, including women, have been arrested in the case.

Prime suspects, identified as Sai Ram and Girish, utilised a staggering array of equipment in their scam. These include 135 unregistered SIM cards, 65 mobile phones, one desktop computer, nine laptops, eight CPUs, nine monitors and five TRX hardware devices, apart from 699 bank accounts with cheque books, one motorcycle and a car.

The commissioner explained that under the pretence of running a cosmetic distribution company offering high-return schemes, the accused committed cyber frauds and ran illegal betting operations using applications, such as Peace Pay, Gogubet and Wags of Ganga 7. They used Chinese websites like TRX payment gateway to collect money and continue their fraudulent activities.

Bagchi identified Sai Ram as the mastermind of the operation, who received assistance from his associate Surya Mohan based in Taiwan.

Together, they utilised unregistered SIM cards and mule accounts provided by Chinese nationals for fraudulent activities involving crores of rupees. They funnelled funds into specific accounts linked to the TRX system, facilitating illicit transactions related to betting, stock market frauds and task-based scams.