Journalism of Courage
Lured with “expert guidance” to obtain high returns on investments in the stock market and a “joining bonus” in Tether for cryptocurrency trading, a Pune software engineer and his relative together lost Rs 48 lakh to cyber fraudsters.
The two were manipulated into making around 30 large transactions by suspects posing as “investment gurus” on phone messenger groups.
An FIR in the case was registered earlier this week at Hinjewadi police station by the 38-year-old software engineer.
In January, when the complainant was surfing on Facebook, he came across an advertisement for an “investment expert” on stock market trading.
After clicking the link, he was added to a WhatsApp group. In the group, the administrators were discussing various share trading “tips” and members were discussing how those tips were resulting in high profits.
A while later, the complainant told one of his relatives about the group after which she too added and started investing.
The two were made to log into a fake investment platform which kept displaying high profits against their “investments”.
After initial transfers on the pretext of “investments”, “upcoming stocks” and IPOs, the administrators of the group started telling the two to invest in Tether cryptocurrency also referred to as USDT.
The cyber fraudsters posing as group administrators even offered a “joining bonus” of 120 USDT which is around Rs 10,000, to the complainant to start investing in the currency.
In June, when the two tried to make withdrawals, they were denied access over several fake reasons. They soon realised that they were being cheated and approached the Pimpri Chinchwad police. The duo lost a total of Rs 47.95 lakh in around 30 transactions.
Investigators have said that in the large number of share trading cases reported till now, the victims have been targeted through social media advertisements, videos and reels.
Over the last six-seven months, the Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad police have reported what their cyber investigators are calling an epidemic, a worrying surge in online share trading fraud cases.
In an advisory issued in this regard on February 26, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has said, “Fraudsters are enticing victims through online trading courses, seminars, and mentorship programs in the stock market, leveraging social media platforms like WhatsApp or Telegram, as well as live broadcasts. Posing as employees or affiliates of SEBI-registered Foreign Portfolio Investors, they coax individuals into downloading applications that purportedly allow them to purchase shares, subscribe to IPOs, and enjoy “Institutional account benefits”—all without the need for an official trading or Demat account. These operations often use mobile numbers registered under false names to orchestrate their schemes.”
