Pune: A techie (53) from Wagholi lodged a complaint with the Pune cyber police on Saturday claiming that online fraudsters, posing as operators of a prominent equity and security firm, cheated him of Rs3.17 crore between March and June after promising handsome returns on his investment in online shares. Inspector Yashwant Nikam of the cyber police station said, “We have registered the complaint and further probe is on. The victim transferred money to 19 different bank accounts. We will seek details of these accounts from banks.”According to the FIR, the victim’s phone number was added to a group on a messaging application. The group members discussed high returns from trading shares. They always praised the group admin for giving appropriate tips to them to invest in shares.“The techie read these messages in March and decided to contact the group admin. He trusted the group because it had the name of a prominent equity and security trading company in India. The group admin then sent him a link and told him to download an application to trade the shares online,” Nikam said.“The techie started buying low-value shares. The application, manipulated by the suspects, showed him very little profit. The group admin then contacted the victim and told him to invest in high-value shares to generate more profit. The fraudsters then shared details of their bank accounts and told the techie to transfer money to these so that they could purchase shares for him. They claimed that these purchases would be reflected on the online application,” the police said.“The suspects shared details of 19 different bank accounts with the techie. He collectively transferred Rs3.17 crore to them,” police inspector Nikam said.“The suspects paid only Rs7,000 as profit to the victim. Once the techie’s application started showing a good profit, he decided to sell some shares. When the suspects did not allow him to do so, the victim realised that he was cheated,” the police said.
