Pune: Cybercrooks, who posed as agents of an online jewellery store, duped a 45-year-old homemaker from Hinjewadi of Rs43.31 lakh in an online task fraud. The crooks gave prepaid tasks of writing posts related to their jewellery store and duped her between March and April this year .The woman filed an online complaint. After preliminary investigations, a case was registered with the Hinjewadi police on Thursday.Police sub-inspector Dnyaneshwar Zol of the Hinjewadi police said the complainant’s husband was an IT engineer and currently based abroad. “While searching for an online job opportunity, the woman received messages from ‘official agents’ of an online jewellery store. They offered her a part-time job of completing tasks related to the promotion of the jewellery store. They offered handsome returns to the woman on her investments in the tasks,” Zol said.He said the woman first invested Rs10,000 and completed the tasks given to her through a link. The crooks gained her confidence by returning her Rs15,000.“Later, the woman went on investing and could see that she earned a good amount of money. After investing almost Rs32 lakh, the woman tried to withdraw her money. The crooks took more money from her by citing reasons like payment of GST and other charges,” he said.Zol said that the woman totally transferred Rs43.31 lakh to the different bank accounts provided to her. When the crooks demanded Rs8 lakh more from her, she became suspicious and stopped responding to them. “When she called her husband and told him about the transactions, he immediately alerted her that she was being duped. He told her to lodge a complaint,” Zol said.
