Hyderabad: A 52-year-old businesswoman from Hanumakonda has lost 1 crore to cyber crooks who allegedly posed as stock market investment gurus. Based on her complaint, a case was registered by Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB).The victim, from Srinagar Colony in Hanumakonda, said she was added to two WhatsApp groups, ‘Trading Changes Lives’ and ‘8-8 Transformative Traders Group’ on Oct 17, 2025 without her consent.She said messages posted by an administrator, who posed as ‘Professor Jagjit Singh’, promised windfall returns from pre-market trading with qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) if she invested funds through their portal, Daltoninv.vip.Trusting the daily market tips and PDF lessons circulated in the groups, the victim and her husband transferred money from their three bank accounts into 12 beneficiary accounts in various banks between Dec 1, 2025, and Jan 25, 2026.Whenever she wanted to withdraw some amount, fraudsters, posing as customer support executives, Pedro, Ronak Shetiya and Akshitha Agjit Parihar, urged her to pay additional amounts towards processing charges and error rectification fee to unlock a fictitious 7 crore balance shown on the fradulent website.After investing over 1 crore, when withdrawal requests were repeatedly blocked, the victim realised she had been duped and filed an online fraud complaint.Acting on the complaint, TGCSB sleuths in Warangal registered a case under Sections 318(4) (cheating and dishonesltly inducing delivery of property), 319(2) (cheating by personation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Sections 66-C, 66-D of the Information Technology (IT) Act on Saturday.
