Mumbai: An 82-year-old retired army captain had fallen prey to a fraud wherein the scammers had floated a fake AI generated video of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman promoting an investment scheme.
Contact with Fraudsters
According to the police, recently, while checking YouTube, the complainant, a Nagpur resident, came across a video (AI generated) of Nirmala Sitharaman wherein it was being claimed that on a minimum investment of Rs 21,000, the citizens can earn good profit.
The said video also contained a mobile number and the victim contacted the said number. A woman spoke to the victim and told her to make an initial investment of Rs 16,000 and he would earn a profit of lakhs of rupees in a month.
The Trap Springs
On the instructions of the said woman, the complainant transferred the money in a bank account provided by her. Thereafter, over the period of time, the scammers instructed the victim to transfer a total of Rs 12.30 lakh in different beneficiary bank accounts.
The scammers told the victim that his profit had reached Rs 40 lakh and demanded more money from him in order to release his earnings. When the demand for money kept continuing, the victim realised that he had been scammed.
Government's Stand
He then approached the police and got an offence registered under sections 318 (cheating), 319 (cheating by personation), 338 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.) and 340 (forged document or electronic record and using it as genuine) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and sections 66C (identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act in the matter.
Recently, a viral video of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman claiming to offer Rs5.50 lakh in a week in lieu of an initial investment amount of Rs 22,000 had surfaced on social media after which central government had clarified that the video was fake and AI generated and neither the Government of India nor the Finance Minister endorsed any such investment scheme.
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