Mumbai: A 61-year-old professor from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) in Matunga became the latest victim of cybercrime, losing over Rs. 7.58 lakhs in a bogus share investment fraud.
The victim, who is from the department of pharmaceutical sciences and technology, received a notification on her WhatsApp stating that a man named Pallav Khurana had added her to a group called "GFSL Securities Official Stock A104." Later, another person named Jayant Piramal began discussing the stock market with her. In the group, the victim observed seminars about stock investments and other "members" discussing the profits they had made from their investments.
Expressing interest in investing, she messaged the group admin, Piramal. She was instructed to download an app named GFSL Val Ed, where she entered her personal details and opened a trading account. Shortly after, she received Rs. 10,000 as a reward. She was encouraged to start investing money and was promised handsome returns.
Initially, she invested Rs. 1.5 lakhs and, according to the app, made a profit of Rs. 6 lakhs. Piramal then asked her to send more money to various bank accounts, and she ended up paying Rs. 7.58 lakhs in total. When she tried to withdraw her money, her attempts were unsuccessful. Despite repeated requests for her money back, Piramal ignored her and instead demanded Rs. 5 lakhs more to "unfreeze the account and return her profits," at which point she realized it was a scam.
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She immediately approached the police and provided all the information of the bank accounts to which she had transferred the money. On Thursday, the Matunga police registered a case against unknown persons for cheating and initiated a probe.
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