Mandya resident arrested in online fraud case

The Dakshina Kannada Cyber Economic and Narcotic (CEN) police have arrested Avinash Ramesh Gowda, 24, a native of Maharashtra and resident of Mandya, in connection with an online fraud case registered in 2025.

In a press release, the police said complainant Yashodhar, a resident of Puttur, received a call from a person claiming to be an executive of an insurance firm on June 17, 2025, and asked him to pay money for the Reliance Insurance policy issued against the complainant’s HDFC credit card. When the complainant refused to pay money, the caller asked him to share the OTP he had received for cancellation of the policy. After he shared the OTP, an amount totalling ₹2.37 lakh got deducted on different dates from his credit card.

The CEN police investigated the case registered for offences under Section 66 (D) of the Information Technology Act and Sections 318(4) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The police found involvement of Gowda and arrested him on Wednesday, February 11. He was produced before the jurisdictional magistrate, who remanded Gowda to 14 days of judicial custody, the police said.