Mumbai: Bizman Loses ₹48L To Scammers In Stock Trading Fraud

A 51-year-old businessman lost Rs 48.25 lakh to scammers who offered him lucrative returns on stock trading investment. The accused made the victim attend an online stock trading workshop and also induced the victim to open an account on a bogus website meant for trading. Later when the victim was unable to withdraw his earnings from the said website, he realised that he had been duped.

According to the police, the victim is a resident of Marol in Andheri. On October 08, the victim received a WhatsApp message from an unknown woman, claiming to be an official of a Bengaluru based company and she informed the victim that he would get good returns if he invested in stock trading. The victim agreed after which he was added to a WhatsApp group. Some of the persons in the said group also shared screenshots of their investment and returns with the victim in order to gain his trust.

The scammers also used to take online classes and workshops which the victim attended. The scammers then shared a link with the victim which directed him to a website where his trading account was created. The victim used to invest through that platform and could see his earnings and profits on the website. Initially, the victim was also able to withdraw his earnings from the said website which further made him believe that the said trading platform was genuine, police said.

From January 14 till February 09, the victim ended up spending Rs 48.25 lakh in around 23 transactions. However, later when the victim tried to withdraw his earnings, he was unable to do so. When he confronted the scammers, they asked him to invest more Rs 95 lakh. Later the accused suspended his trading account after which the victim approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter.

The police have registered a case under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66C (identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.