A 46-year-old woman has fallen prey to scammers and lost Rs 49.46 lakh in shares investment fraud in around 16 online transactions.
According to the police, the complainant is a resident of Thane and has an account in a Nariman Point-based bank. In September, the complainant while surfing Facebook came across a link related to share trading investment. On September 17, her mobile number got added in a WhatsApp group ‘SBI Securities Ltd’ where information about the buying and selling of shares was provided. The said group had 152 members in it.
On September 20, the scammers induced her to fill an applicant registration form and shared a trading link through which she was asked to trade in shares. Between September 25 and November 2, the complainant made 16 transactions to the tune of Rs49.46 lakh. However, when she tried to withdraw her earnings, her requests were denied. When confronted, she was instructed to pay more Rs14 lakh as service charge and capital gain tax.
Later the complainant’s husband visited the SBI Securities Ltd office at Lower Parel and learnt that his wife has been scammed. Realising the fraud, the complainant approached the police and got an offence registered under sections 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act, police said.
