A 25-year-old woman working as a software engineer in a multinational company fell victim to cyber fraud, losing over ₹8.67 lakh. The fraudsters, posing as online job providers, offered her a part-time job to earn money during her spare time. According to her complaint to the police, she received the job offer from an unidentified person on WhatsApp. Subsequently, she was added to a Telegram group where she was instructed to follow Instagram pages in exchange for ₹50 per follow.
At first, the scammers sent small amounts of money to her accounts, seemingly to build trust. Later, she was given a project that involved placing orders on an e-commerce platform to earn additional money. Enticed by the promise of earning commissions, she ended up depositing money into various bank accounts to redeem her earnings from completing the tasks. However, the demands for more deposits continued, and it was only when she realized she had been deceived that she discovered she had lost ₹8,67,256 within just four days.
An immediate complaint was filed against the unidentified caller and account holders at the cyber cell, followed by the registration of an offense under the relevant sections of the IPC and Information Technology Act-2000 at the Navghar police station in Bhayandar on June 25. The investigation into the matter is currently ongoing.
