A Lake Town resident was cheated of Rs 8 lakh by three men, one of whom posed as his US-based cousin in dire straits and sought monetary help, police said.

Two of them were arrested on Sunday night and one on Monday based on a complaint Apurv Garg lodged with Lake Town police station, an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.

Garg said in his complaint he had received several WhatsApp messages from a number with the US country code.

He could not recognise the number but it had a profile picture of his cousin Abhishek Goel, the police said.

The messages sent to Garg pleaded for help and asked him to deposit Rs 8 lakh into a bank account, the officer said. The person sending the messages claimed Goel was using a new phone as he had lost his older one.

Worried about the safety and well-being of his cousin, Garg deposited the money into the bank account, the number of which he had received on WhatsApp.

A day later, he got to know his cousin hadn’t sent the messages. “He then filed a complaint,” the officer said.

Cops started tracking the phone number from which Garg had received the messages and the money trail and zeroed in on Bhavesh Mehta, Nilesh Nimavat and Dhawal Panchami, the police said.

They were picked up from their homes. “We tracked down the money trail and arrested all three. We are investigating if anyone else is involved,” the officer said.

They have been booked under various IPC sections, including 420 (cheating).

A Salt Lake court sent them to police custody for two days.

Another investigating officer said the police were trying to find out if the men knew Garg and Goel as the latter’s photograph had been used on WhatsApp.

“We will question the men to find out if they know the two brothers. It is likely they do… they knew exactly which photograph to use and were careful to use a number with a US country code,” the officer said.