Mumbai: A 44-year-old man fell prey to scammers and lost Rs 1.18 crore in shares investment fraud in a dozen online transactions in less than a month.
About The Case
According to the Thane police, the complainant, a private company employee and a resident of Thane came across an advertisement on Facebook about share market investment on January 7. He clicked on the join button in the advertisement and his mobile number got added to a WhatsApp group where information about shares investment was being discussed.
The scammers also shared a web link with the complainant through which he was induced to download a bogus trading app on his phone. Between January 7 and 29, the complainant was induced to transfer Rs 1.18 crore in different beneficiary bank accounts in a dozen online transactions. On February 3, when he checked his profit on the app he found it had reached Rs7.99 crore. However, when he asked the process to withdraw his earnings, the scammers told him to pay more Rs 2.54 crore.
Since the complainant did not have more money and demanded a return of his paid amount, the scammers started giving him evasive replies. Having realised that he had been duped, the complainant approached the police on Thursday.
Case Registered
A case has been registered under sections 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.
