Hyderabad: A software engineer from Bachupally was duped by cybercriminals of Rs. 2.29 crore after they trapped him in a fake stock investment scheme. A probe has been launched by the Cyberabad Cybercrime Police following the victim’s complaint.
Police said the 51-year-old engineer was lured into the scheme through a WhatsApp group called 'KSL Official Stock'. It was being run by a person, namely Narayana Jindal, who posed as Chief Investment Officer of Kotak Securities.
On October 2, Jindal unveiled a program on the group and encouraged group members to download the Kotak Pro app to join the VIP trading plan with high profits. He also sent promotional messages to individuals detailing how they benefited from it, most likely to persuade others to join. The ploy persuaded the victim to invest and he downloaded the app and made a first deposit of Rs. 5 lakh.
The app showed him that he had made a 10% return in a day, which made him happy, and he was persuaded to spend more, eventually investing a total of Rs. 2.29 crores over four instalments. The fraudsters promised him to allocate initial public offering (IPO) shares worth Rs. 1.5 crores, but he could only withdraw a token amount of Rs. 10,000, and the app was showing a profit of Rs. 1.10 crore.
However, when the software engineer tried to withdraw the money, he was unable to, and the app asked him to pay Rs. 40 lakhs more, which made him realise that he had been duped and had fallen victim to an elaborate scam.
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