Mumbai: According to the police, the complainant is a resident of New Panvel. On January 15, the victim came across a link related to stock trading on the internet. The victim clicked the said link after which he was directed to a Telegram link group wherein it was being claimed that investors would get lucrative returns on investments in stock trading.
The victim then downloaded a stock trading app on his phone on the instructions of scammers. From January 15 till March 26, the victim in 30 online transactions, invested Rs 21.96 lakh. However, when the victim decided to withdraw his earnings, he was asked by scammers to pay more money.
Since the victim was unable to withdraw his earnings, he realised that he had been duped, He then approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter. The victim has provided details of the mobile numbers used by the scammers, links shared by them and the beneficiary account details to the police.
The police have registered a case under section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and 66C (punishment for identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.
The Central Govt had recently issued an alert for citizens warning them about the scammers duping people using fake trading apps. The scammers use fake trading apps to dupe the victim by inducing them to invest in stocks by promising large profits and sharing fake profit screenshots.
In February this year, the Cyber Crime Police of Mumbai had registered at least eleven cases in which scammers had duped citizens collectively to the tune of Rs 4.40 crores.
