A 60-year-old man has fallen prey to scammers and lost over Rs40 lakh in stock trading investment fraud. According to Kapurbawdi police, the complainant is a resident of Thane. In the second week of February, the complainant received a link on his WhatsApp regarding stock trading investment.
The complainant clicked the said link after which he got added into a group. The group consisted of expert trainers who were imparting knowledge and information about stock trading.
Scammers had told the complainant to open an institutional trading account and trade in upper circuit stocks to earn huge profits. The man was then induced to download a bogus trading app on his phone and between March 6 and April 9, the complainant invested Rs40.75 lakh in eleven transactions.
He could see his earnings of Rs7.32 crore on the said app, however, when the complainant tried to withdraw his earnings, he could not do so. When he confronted the scammers, he was asked to pay more money. Realised that he was cheated, the man approached the police and got an offence registered.
The complainant has provided details of the WhatsApp group floated by the scammers, their contact details, bogus trading application details and transaction details to the police in his complaint. The case was filed under sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and 66C (identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.
