Task fraud: Nagpur lawyer, estate agent held for duping SoBo woman of Rs 55 lakh

The complainant woman (47) has an import business and has an office in Fort area. As per her complaint, in July 2023 she had randomly received a message from a woman identifying herself as Arya, and offered her an online work from home, part time job in which she was supposed to complete ‘tasks’ of subscribihg some YouTube channels and in return get paid for every task. After the woman’s number was added in some telegram groups, she completed some tasks and got paid as promised via UPI payments.

Later, the woman received links of various tasks in the group, which she was told offer paid tasks with better returns. If she paid Rs 2,000 she will get back Rs 2,800, on payment of Rs 5,000 and Rs 9,000 she would get back Rs 6,800 and Rs 11,500 respectively, in return, she was told, said a police source.The complainant found the tasks exciting and invested small amounts and initially got promised returns.The group then lured her with high income tasks, and made her deposit Rs 55.36 lakh between July 24-28, 2023. Whenever she would ask for her money they would give her another paid tasks for refund of entire money.

She approached the south region cyber police station and filed a complaint. While scanning the transaction details and details of beneficiary bank accounts, police learnt that one bank account was used multiple times for receiving Rs 14.50 lakh of the amount. Police traced the holder of this bank account Kanchan Meshram to Nagpur who told police that her friend Salma allegedly fraudulently used her documents to open the bank account and misused it. Meshram also filed an FIR against Salma at Pardi police station in Nagpur. .Cyber police traced Salma and her associate Ekunkar from Nagpur on Saturday and brought them to Mumbai.

The two accused have been charged with sections 419, 420, 466, 467, 468, 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and 66C and 66D of Information Technology Act.