27 held in Tamil Nadu iridium scam worth crores: CBCID posed as buyers; accused misused RBI’s name

Tamil Nadu police’s Crime Branch, Criminal Investigation Department (CBCID) busted a major financial scam on Saturday, arresting 27 people.

All of them were involved in a multi-crore iridium scam, in which ordinary people were defrauded using the name of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The accused claimed that millions of rupees could be earned from abroad by selling the rare metal ‘iridium’.

RBI approval claim in iridium scam

The fraudsters trapped people by claiming that the RBI had approved the sale of the metal. They created fake RBI documents and contacted victims using fake email accounts.

This made their scheme appear genuine. Multiple gangs set up unregistered trusts and collected crores of rupees from unsuspecting victims.

What is Iridium?

Iridium is a very rare, hard and shiny metal. It is silvery-white in color and is one of the densest (heaviest) metals found in nature.

Iridium does not break easily nor does it rust. It melts at very high temperatures (around 2450C) and does not react quickly with other chemical substances.

Iridium is used in fountain pen nibs, precious jewelry, injection needles, electrical contacts, and scientific instruments.

It combines with platinum to make the metal even stronger.

'Invest one lakh, get one crore'

Police said the accused would cheat people by making claims like 'Give 1 lakh, get 1 crore' or 'Sell iridium and get crores from abroad'.

Tamil Nadu Police has warned people not to fall for such temptations and asked to immediately report to cyber or crime branch.

All arrested accused have now been sent to judicial custody.

Network spread across 15 districts of Tamil Nadu, 30 arrested on September 12

CBCID investigation revealed that this operation's network is spread across 15 districts of Tamil Nadu. On October 23 and 24, police conducted simultaneous raids at multiple locations and arrested 27 people.

These include main accused Kambam Chandran, Perumanallur Rani, Musiri Yuvaraj, Varusanadu Pallaniammal and Nagapattinam Rajasivam.

Earlier, in the first operation on September 12, police had already arrested 30 other people.