The Cyber Crime Police in Ayodhya have dismantled an organised fraud network that used a fake gaming website to lure victims with promises of doubling or tripling their investments, arresting two accused and freezing ₹57 lakh linked to the operation. A forensic sweep of seized devices uncovered records tied to more than 11,000 gaming IDs, offering a rare, granular look at the scale one such network was able to reach before being caught.
From a Home Address to a Fake Call Centre
Police identified Aqeel Ahmad, alias Urfi, as the alleged operator of the scheme, running it out of his own residence, where investigators say they also discovered a fake call centre used to communicate with victims. His alleged associate, Aman Khan, was arrested alongside him. The case surfaced after police, scrutinising a set of suspicious bank accounts, traced the transaction trail back to the pair.
According to investigators, the operation followed a now-familiar script: victims were persuaded to invest through an online gaming platform on the promise of unusually high, fast returns, with the website displaying fictitious profits and inflated account balances to build confidence before any withdrawal was attempted. When investors eventually tried to cash out, they were allegedly asked to pay additional sums framed as taxes or processing charges, after which no funds were ever released.
What the Seized Devices Revealed
Police recovered six Android phones, one tablet and assorted electronic devices from the accused. Forensic examination of these devices reportedly uncovered more than 11,000 gaming IDs and passwords, alongside detailed investment and withdrawal data and WhatsApp chat logs allegedly used to run the fraud, evidence that points to an operation with a considerably larger victim pool than the two arrests alone might suggest.
Investigators identified five bank accounts linked to the accused during the probe, one of which had already been flagged on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal in connection with an earlier, unrelated cyber fraud complaint, a detail suggesting the account may have circulated through more than one fraud network before this case surfaced. Police have frozen ₹57 lakh in a separate account and are examining further financial transactions to establish the full scale of the alleged fraud. A third accused, identified as Sufiyan, remains absconding.
Part of a Wider State and National Pattern
The Ayodhya case fits squarely within a trend that has made Uttar Pradesh the epicentre of India’s cyber fraud problem this year. The state recorded approximately 1.85 lakh cyber fraud complaints in the first six months of 2026 alone, the highest of any state in the country, ahead of Maharashtra’s roughly 1.58 lakh complaints. Nationally, investment scams, of which fake gaming and trading platforms form a significant share, account for an estimated 75 to 77 per cent of all money stolen through cyber fraud, according to Ministry of Home Affairs and Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre data, with Indians losing an estimated ₹22,495 crore to cyber fraud across 2025.
Police in neighbouring Haryana have separately flagged that fraudulent trading and gaming apps have now overtaken older tactics such as OTP phishing and fake KYC updates as the most common form of cyber fraud in the state, with one Karnal cyber cell alone registering 93 FIRs tied to fake trading platforms in just six months, a shift that mirrors what the Ayodhya case appears to demonstrate on a smaller, more localised scale.
What Officials Are Telling the Public
The Future Crime Research Foundation said fake gaming and investment platforms have become a rapidly growing avenue for cyber-enabled financial crime, relying primarily on social engineering, fabricated dashboards and the promise of extraordinary returns to convince victims to transfer money voluntarily rather than through any technical exploitation.
Cybersecurity experts have advised the public to treat any platform guaranteeing unusually high or risk-free returns with scepticism, independently verify a website or app’s legitimacy before investing, and avoid transferring funds to unfamiliar platforms. Anyone who suspects they have fallen victim to such a scheme has been urged to report it immediately through the 1930 Cyber Helpline or the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, while police continue efforts to trace the absconding third accused.
