Mumbai: Kurla man loses Rs 15 lakh in bitcoin investment fraud

A 50-year-old Kurla resident has lodged a complaint with the Nehru Nagar police stating that he was induced by a fraudster to invest in a bogus bitcoin trading company and was duped to the tune of Rs 17.30 lakh. The fraudster told the victim that the company gives as high as 150 percent returns on investment after which the victim kept investing bigger amounts and later paid money to make withdrawals. However, later when the company's web link became dysfunctional and the fraudster stopped responding, the victim realised he had been duped.

According to the police, the complainant is a resident of Kurla and works in a private company. On September 16, last year, the victim had received a WhatsApp message from a United Kingdom based number. The sender identified herself as Neeham Sarah claiming to be a bitcoin trading analyst. Sarah asked the victim if he was interested in investing in crypto-currency. Sarah also informed the victim about a company, claiming that the said company gives 150 percent returns on investment. Since the victim didn't have enough money he could not make investments then.

On January 06, this year, again approached the victim and the latter agreed to make some investments. Sarah then shared a weblink of the company on the victim's WhatsApp. The victim clicked on the link and completed the registration process. The victim then initially invested 200 USD and after a few days he found on the web link that he had got a 30 percent increase on investment. Believing in this, the victim kept investing bigger amounts thereon. After having invested over Rs 15.30 lakh, the victim learnt through the web link that his profits have grown up to 150 percent, police said.

However, when the victim wanted to make withdrawals, he was made to pay further money as process charges. The victim paid Rs 2 lakh on the bank accounts provided by the fraudster. Later in April, the link on which the victim was tracking his investment became dysfunctional and Sarah too stopped responding to the victim's messages. Having realised that he had been duped, the victim approached the police and got an offence lodged in the matter on Sunday. The police have registered a case on charges of cheating by personation, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, identity theft and cheating by personation by using computer resource.