Cyber criminals swindle Pune businessman of Rs 2.15 crore, posing as woman with marriage proposal

Between April and June earlier this year, the victim was defrauded of a total of Rs 2.15 crore, by cyber criminals posing as ‘Aakriti Sharma’, claiming she was from a business family. She said she had gotten the complainant’s contact from matrimonial services and got in touch with the complainant over Whatsapp.

The woman claimed her family ran a furniture business in Indore and said she was interested in taking the marriage proposal forward. She said that she and her brother were also into currency trading from which they were getting 25 per cent profit.

As the man continued communicating with the woman with intent to take the proposal further, she convinced him to start investing in currency trading. She made him log onto a fraudulent trading platform and open his own profile on it.

The complainant was given details of fraudulent bank accounts to send money to and each of his transfers was getting reflected on the fraudulent application along with corresponding high gains in US dollars.

As the complainant continued talking to the woman he also made large transfers through the platform thinking he was getting huge profits. After transferring Rs 2.15 crore the corresponding profits as reflected on the platform were Rs four crore. As the complainant submitted a withdrawal request, he was asked to pay tax of Rs 57 lakh.

At this point when he discussed the issue with his friends, the complainant was made to realise that he had been defrauded. He subsequently approached the Cyber crime police station and an FIR was registered on Tuesday following a preliminary inquiry.