Mumbai: A 59-year-old businessman lost Rs 60 lakh to scammers after falling prey to crypto trading fraud. The scammers induced the victim to download a crypto trading platform which reflected his earnings on investment. They gained the victim's trust by initially allowing him to withdraw the money from the app, but when the victim invested a huge amount, he was unable to withdraw money from the app.
According to the police, the victim is a resident of Kalamboli in Navi Mumbai and runs a logistics business. In November last year, the victim, while checking Facebook, came across the profile of a woman, who claimed to have knowledge of forex trading.
After chatting with the victim for a few days, the woman suggested to the victim to invest in forex trading. She took a month's time to convince the victim to invest with a small amount to begin with. As per the instructions of the woman, the victim downloaded a crypto trading platform app on his phone, a link of which was shared by the woman.
On December 09, the victim invested Rs 90400 for crypto currency and after some time, he could see an increase of 99 crypto currency in the app that he had downloaded. The victim then kept investing more money and was also able to withdraw the money with profits after which he completely trusted the woman and the trading platform app.
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Victim Invested ₹60 Lakh In Multiple Transactions
From December 09 till December 30, the victim ended up investing Rs 60 lakh in 17 separate transactions. Later when the victim decided to withdraw his earnings, he was told by the scammers to pay more money as taxes to claim his earnings, else he will never be able to withdraw money from the app.
The victim tried contacting the woman to resolve the issue, but her phone remained switched off. Having realised that he had been duped, the victim approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter on Monday.
The police have registered a case under sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 419 (cheating by personation) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code.
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