Hyderabad resident loses over Rs1.4 crore in two separate stock market investment frauds

Hyderabad: A 63-year-old private worker from Srinagar Colony lost Rs 1.47 crore to cyber fraudsters posing as stock market investment advisors. A case was registered at the Hyderabad Cyber Crime police station on the victim’s complaint on Wednesday.The victim alleged that on June 2, while browsing Facebook, he found a stock market investment promotional post. Upon clicking the link, he was added to a WhatsApp group, “865NJFW-NJ High Net Worth Exchange Group,” in which fraudsters posing as Sahana and N Choksi advised him to open an account in their app to get 700% profit on his investments.“I downloaded a trading app from the link given by them. Between July 4 and 22, I transferred Rs 92.7 lakh to different bank accounts provided by the accused.

The app showed my total earnings as Rs 16.81 crore. When I tried to withdraw, they asked me to pay Rs 1.6 crore as a service charge, and I realised that it was a fraud,” the victim said.

During the same time, the victim also invested through another fake investment app operated by another group with whom he came in contact through a WhatsApp message. The second group of fraudsters, posing as Rahman and Sanya, made him transfer over Rs 54 lakh to different bank accounts towards stock market investment between June 21 and July 17. “My total earnings on the app showed as Rs 2.7 crore, and when they did not let me withdraw, I approached the police,” the victim said.On his complaint, a case was registered under relevant sections of BNS and the IT Act on Wednesday at Hyderabad Cyber Crime PS. Police are analysing the bank transactions of the victim to identify the fraudsters.