Mumbai Cyber Safe: Uttan techie loses ₹5.20 lakh to crypto fraud

A 35-year-old techie working with a multinational company was duped of ₹5.2 lakh by cyber criminals who lured him into investing money in crypto trade in return for a huge profit.

In his police complaint, the Uttan resident said that he received a message from a woman on a social networking site. Introducing herself as an USA-based binary trader, the woman convinced him into making a trial investment of ₹40,000 on a cryptocurrency exchange platform. She promised a return of more than ₹3.9 lakh in less than three hours. When the complainant signed into his trading account, his balance had jumped to USD 500 (approximately ₹4.09 lakh). However, he was only able to see his investment and profit but unable to withdraw a single rupee.

Fake app shows ₹13 lakh account balance

The woman asked the aggrieved to pump more money for upgrading his account, while assuring a huge sum in return. In a span of three days, he transferred a total of ₹5.2 lakh through nine transactions to various digital wallets and accounts specified by the cybercriminals.

Although his account balance soared to USD 16000 (approximately ₹13 lakh), the man could only see the figures on the application which was apparently fake. All those social media accounts, through which the woman interacted with him, were later deleted.

Sensing the fraud, he registered a complaint at the Uttan coastal police station on Friday. An offence under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act has been registered against unidentified cybercriminal.

Mumbai Cyber Safe:

According to Cyber Crime Cell under Crime Branch of mumbai police , the most common form of online frauds are related to banks, online commerce platforms where fraudsters, posing as bank /platform officials, convince the victim to share OTP, KYC updates and sometimes send the links to be clicked to access bank accounts.

“People should know that no bank or institution is authorised to demand for bank details or PIN numbers. Unfortunately, educated people are falling prey to online frauds and losing lakhs of rupees,” explained DCP Cyber Crime, Balsingh Rajput

Published on: Saturday, April 15, 2023, 07:57 PM IST