Google India Nodal Officer Booked After Defence PSU Employee Loses ₹7.95 Lakh In Fake Play Store Trading App Scam

Hyderabad: A case was registered against Google India’s nodal officer here for "negligence" after a defence PSU employee allegedly lost Rs 7.95 lakh through a "fake" trading application downloaded from the Google Play Store, police said on Wednesday.

The latest case was registered at the Cyberabad Cyber Crime police station, following a complaint by the victim.

The victim stated that fraudsters contacted him through a social media platform in July and the administrators "advised" him to invest through the trading app after opening an account.

The complainant stated that he then deposited Rs 7.95 lakh in different bank accounts through the app, which showed profits, but the withdrawal requests were rejected and he was asked to pay the amount as withdrawal tax.

The victim then filed a complaint and stated that as the application was available on Google Play Store, he trusted that it would be a legitimate application and made investments, but lost the amount, a senior police official said.

Based on the complaint, a case was registered on charges of negligence. Google India’s nodal officer was named as one of the accused, the official said.

There was no immediate response from the company.

The development comes after the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police designated the "Head of Google in India" as a co-accused in three other separate cyber fraud cases registered recently in which the complainants alleged that fraudsters cheated them in the guise of high returns for their investments by making them download "fake" apps from Google Play Store.

The complainants had alleged that they downloaded the fraudulent trading applications, believing them to be genuine and trustworthy as they featured on the Google Play Store.

Based on the three separate complaints, police registered cases under relevant sections of the IT Act and BNS against the fraudsters and the Google India Head.

Google on July 22 said it has initiated an immediate investigation after being alerted about alleged cyber fraud cases involving investment apps and found that only one of them was available on the Play Store and complies with its financial services policy.

(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)