Mumbai: Man falls prey to investment fraud, lodges cop complaint

A 32-year-old accountant from Alibaug has lodged a complaint with the police stating that he had received a WhatsApp message from a woman claiming to be an official of an American company which used money from investors in the American share market and gives lucrative returns on investment. The victim then invested money through the said woman and later got duped to the tune of lakhs of rupees. The victim in his complaint has told the police that there were several WhatsApp groups in which hundreds of people were associated as members and the police are now probing if more people have fallen prey to the fraud.

According to the police, in June this year, the victim had received a link on his WhatsApp from an unknown woman who claimed to be an account manager of an American company that invests money of their investors in the American share market. As per the woman, on an investment of Rs 500, the investor would get Rs 15 per day returns. The woman also claimed that their company is situated at Nariman Point. The victim then registered himself through the link provided by the woman. The woman had also told the victim that he would get commission if he would introduce three more investors.

The victim was then added to a WhatsApp group created by the woman and asked the victim to add more people in the group so that the investment plans reach maximum people. As per the victim, there were several such WhatsApp groups which had hundreds of people as members. After getting initial returns on investment, the victim kept investing more money and ended up investing Rs 2.96 lakh. The victim had received some amount on his investment but was unable to get Rs 1.72 lakh due amount. On September 20, some of the members learnt that the weblink of the company was not functional anymore, police said.

Efforts made by the victim to contact the woman could not yield any results after which he approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter on Saturday. A case has been registered under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66C (identity theft) 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.