Mumbai: With a rising number of frauds in the cyberspace related to investment schemes and stock markets, the Mumbai Police have released a set of guidelines for citizens on how to prevent themselves from being targeted by cyber criminals.
Lately, Mumbai Police managed to bust several cyber fraud rings who were allegedly involved in preying Mumbaikars on the pretext of share and IPO related frauds. In a span of just 1 year, they managed to recover over Rs. 8.3 crores that victims had lost to cyber crime. This was followed by the arrests of several individuals from across the country who were allegedly involved in the fraud.
Yet, the number of cases reported by the victims are on rise. In a video uploaded by the Mumbai Police on ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, Suvarna Shinde, senior police inspector of North Region Cyber Police, Crime Branch said, “Fraudsters are approaching people via social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc, by luring them to invest in share trading. These instances are on the rise. They assure victims of huge returns, and falling on these, people are getting trapped, and end up losing their precious money. Hence, we are making people aware about these frauds, and to let people not fall into such traps. If experienced such situations, citizens are to immediately report it by dialing 1930, or register their complaint at cybercrime.gov.in.”
According to Mumbai Police, the modus operandi of these fraudsters in cyber crime related to share trading are by first, approaching victims via social media. Victims are added to WhatsApp groups through Facebook/Instagram or other social media platforms. Then, the potential victims are given ‘classes’ of Stock and IPO investment. The ones who conduct these classes portray themselves as ‘teachers’ or ‘experts’ in the field of stocks and trading.
“These classes are conducted online, via video apps like Zoom, WhatsApp, Google Meet, etc, where an expert delivers weekly or monthly lectures to the victims. These ‘teachers’ have great English-speaking skills, with good command and conviction, automatically providing confidence among the victims,” said a police official.
Secondly, victims are made to download trading applications (.apk files/ or via play store or app store), where they are made to make initial payments. The final step is where this money gets frozen. “The money gets frozen, and in order to unfreeze or release the funds, victims are told to pay more. This cycle keeps occurring and victims end up losing lakhs and even crores of their money in an attempt to release their invested money,” the official added.
Things Mumbaikars can do to stay alert, according to Mumbai Police, are to be cautious of fake accounts that impersonate genuine trading/investments or influencers. Citizens are to double-check the website URLs, reviews, privacy policy, terms and conditions and social media handles and review from the open source.
They are to verify and think twice before investing money in such platforms which are mostly coming through such online social media profiles/channels/influencers, said the guideline, adding saying that citizens are to avoid sharing sensitive personal or financial information through social media.
“Avoid clicking on suspicious links or downloading unauthorized applications from Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, and other social media platforms,” said the guideline, which ended by saying citizens are to report cybercrime immediately either online, or by visiting their nearest police station.
