Hyderabad: A 50-year-old interior decoration businessman from Khammam lost 2.05 crore in a crypto-trading fraud, and a 57-year-old deputy general manager of a private firm was duped of over 33.5 lakh after investing through fake stock portals promoted by a fake video of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Instagram, police have said. Acting on their complaints, Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) have registered two separate cases of cheating.In the first case, the 50-year-old businessman received a WhatsApp message on Nov 25, 2025 from a woman calling herself, Jessica Meenakshi. She claimed to work for a ceramic firm in Sharjah and also ran a family-owned crypto and forex trading outfit. She persuaded the victim to open an account on the website, pc.fxprogroup.cc, promising large returns on foreign-exchange and crypto deals.After investing 50,000 on Dec 14, 2025, he was allowed to withdraw a supposed profit of 4,880 the next day. “I was convinced that the platform was genuine and continued to invest,” the victim said. In multiple transactions from his four bank accounts and three accounts of his friends, he invested over 1 crore between Dec 14, 2025, and Jan 21, 2026.When he finally attempted to withdraw an on-screen balance of USD 3,89,592 on Jan 21, the fraudsters demanded 64 lakh towards income tax. By Feb 3, the victim had paid the amount and tried to withdraw once again. “This time, I was asked to pay 34.28 lakh towards currency-exchange fee and I paid the same on Feb 7. Subsequently, I was asked to pay 51.42 lakh towards security deposit fee and I realised that it was a fraud. I lost over 2.05 crore,” the victim told TGCSB sleuths.On his complaint, a case was registered at TGCSB’s Khammam unit on March 12.In the second case, the 57-year-old victim, who worked as a deputy general manager at a private firm in Khammam, clicked an online stock market investment advertisement in May 2025 featuring a fake video of the Union finance minister. He was contacted by tele-callers identifying themselves as Abdul and Arul, and based on their guidance, the victim opened accounts on trad****.com and bu******et.com and began transferring money from his personal bank accounts.He transferred over 33.5 lakh between May 26 and Sept 6, 2025. His withdrawal requests were first stalled and later rejected, with the websites showing negative balances recently. Based on the complaint of the victim, TGCSB Khammam booked a case under relevant sections of BNS and the IT Act on March 20.
