Pune: Three people – a pharmacist, a mall manager and a private company employee – collectively lost Rs 60 lakh to separate online share trading frauds. The Sinhagad Road, Kondhwa and Nanded City police registered separate cases. A 52-year-old pharmacist from Sinhagad Road, who lost Rs 26.4 lakh, stated in his complaint that in Oct last year, he was added to a group on a mobile messenger. He was given online training and then told to download an app for making investments and monitoring the profit. “The pharmacist initially invested some amount and could see good profit in the app,” an officer from the Sinhagad Road police said.He said the victim then went on transferring money to the bank accounts provided to him for investing. He transferred Rs 26.4 lakh till Dec 12 last year. “He also obtained a gold loan of Rs 10 lakh to purchase the shares and IPOs,” he said.The officer said the victim could see in the app that he earned a profit of Rs 33.8 lakh on his investments. “He realised that he was being duped when the crooks continued to demand more money from him, citing different reasons,” the officer said.In another similar fraud, a manager (45) at a city-based mall lost Rs 25.3 lakh to the cybercrooks. In Oct last year, the crooks used the same modus operandi. “The victim transferred Rs 25.3 lakh to different bank accounts. When he tried to withdraw money, the crooks demanded more money from him. He then approached the police,” an officer from the Kondhwa police said.In Jan, a Nanded city resident (45) lost Rs 8.50 lakh to the cybercrooks in the same manner.
