Pune: A retired bank employee (65) from Sahakarnagar lost Rs1.52 crore between Dec 7 last year and Feb 7 to an online share-trading fraud after falling for ‘good returns on investment’ bait.The victim on Monday lodged a complaint with the Pune cybercrime police.Senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of Pune cybercrime police told TOI, “The cybercrooks first added his cellphone number to a group on a social messaging application. Members of this group had been discussing high returns gained from online trading of shares with the assistance of the group admin.”“The victim was alone in the house and he did not exit from the group. Instead, he kept on reading the discussions on the group and was impressed with the profit earned by the group members after the group admin provided share trading tips.”Following this, the victim contacted the group admin and expressed his interest in making money from online share-trading.“The group admin promised him help and sent him a link for an online share-trading application and asked him to download it. The victim downloaded the application,” Shinde said.Initially, the victim bought shares of lesser value using the facility of the application. However, the group admin contacted him and asked him to invest in the high value shares and IPOs, police said.“The group admin also promised to help the victim out in identifying the high value shares and the IPOs. The crook also promised to buy such shares for the victim,” Shinde said.“The fraudsters then shared seven bank accounts with the victim and the victim went on transferring money to these bank accounts. Collectively, he transferred Rs 1.52 crore,” she said.“The share-trading application showed him a profit of over Rs 3 crore. When the victim decided to sell these shares, the fraudsters did not allow him. The victim then realised that he has been cheated,” she said.
