Senior citizen falls victim to online investment scam, lose Rs 1.3 crore

UDUPI: The CEN Crime police registered a case after a senior citizen was allegedly duped of over Rs 1.32 crore in a fraudulent online investment trading scam. The complainant, Henry D Almeida, stated that on July 19, he saw an advertisement on Facebook about investment trading.

When he clicked on it, a link opened, and he then received a WhatsApp message on his number asking him to invest in trading. Later, a person introduced herself as Ankita Ghosh and provided him with information about investments, created a QIB account for him, and added him to a WhatsApp group named 725 Bob Caps.Messages in the group claimed that investing through various numbers would yield profits. Believing this, the complainant searched for 725 Bob Caps customer care service and contacted them via WhatsApp.

They provided him with various bank account details and instructed him to invest money. Accordingly, between July 22 and September 1, the complainant claimed that he invested a total of Rs 1,32,90,000 in stages.

However, neither the invested money nor any promised profits were returned. In this regard, a case has been registered under Sections 66(C), 66(D) of the IT Act and Section 318(4) of the BNS.Rs 79,500 Siphoned Off from Bank AccountsA man from Shirva lodged a complaint after cyber fraudsters allegedly siphoned off Rs 79,500 from his bank accounts. The complainant, Antony Richard Vas, 54, reported that from Aug 30 onwards, he began receiving SMS messages on his mobile phone containing Aadhaar OTPs and OTPs for changing his UPI password, to which he did not respond. On Aug 31, he also received a WhatsApp message that simply said "hi," but he did not reply.

Later, he noticed that an APK file had unknowingly been downloaded onto his mobile device, which he promptly uninstalled.On Sept 3 at around 12:40 p.m., he received a message that money had been debited from his account. Upon checking, he found that Rs 74,500 had been debited from his Canara Bank account and Rs 5,000 from his Union Bank account. In total, Rs 79,500 had been withdrawn. It is alleged that unknown persons, despite the complainant never sharing any OTPs, managed to misuse the OTPs sent since Aug 30 and fraudulently accessed his bank accounts, transferring the money to their own accounts without his knowledge.

In this regard, a case has been registered at Shirva Police Station, under Section 66(C) of the IT Act.