Five men, who posed as agents of a Russian online gaming platform, have been arrested by the Tamil Nadu cyber crime wing for allegedly cheating several people of over Rs 10 crore by inviting them to play games on a fraudulent website.

The police reportedly said that the accused, identified as Sasikumar, Saikumar, Rajesh Kumar, Mohammed Asif and Raj Kumar, operated through more than 350 gaming portals and hundreds of different bank accounts. Two laptops, one desktop, 10 cell phones, 27 ATM cards, four pendrives, 340 SIM cards and Rs 1.20 lakh cash have also been seized from the group, as per reports. Superintendent of police Sibi Chakravarthy, whose team busted the gang, was quoted as saying by a news agency, “The Russian firm do not take money directly from the players but the money deposited by them would go to the bank accounts managed by the respective agents.”

“They in turn would convert it into crypto currency and transfer them to the Russian firm and in return they would get tokens which they can get reimbursed at any shop for their purchase. The accused used laymen's bank accounts for the transactions after paying them Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 and each account was used for transactions upto Rs 4 lakh so that they do not come under scrutiny for tax evasion,” the official added.