Panchkula: Retired armyman, wife lose ₹4.2 crore to investment fraud

Brigadier Mahendra Singh, a resident of DLF Valley, Panchkula, had received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number, promising lucrative returns on stock market investments

A retired army officer and his wife lost a whopping ₹4.2 crore to an investment fraud carried out using a fraudulent mobile application.

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Brigadier Mahendra Singh, a resident of DLF Valley, Panchkula, said that on July 9, he had received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number, promising lucrative returns on stock market investments. He was further directed to join a WhatsApp group and install a mobile application named VIP HDFC, which Singh believed was the official HDFC bank app.

Singh, convinced by the initial gains displayed on the app, transferred ₹5 lakh into an account provided by the scammers. The scammers subsequently managed to convince Singh to transfer a total of ₹2.1 crore into multiple accounts.

The scam was further compounded when Singh’s wife was also deceived into transferring ₹2 crore from her HDFC account to the same set of fraudulent accounts. The couple made payments to multiple accounts including Bank of Maharashtra, Ratnakar Bank Limited, IDFC, and Yes Bank.

On August 9, Singh got suspicious when demands for more money were made by the fraudsters, claiming that additional funds were required to sell the stocks. Realising he had been duped, Singh sought advice from friends and relatives, which confirmed his fears.

He then approached the police, following which a case under Sections 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), 318(4)/338/340 (forgery) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was registered.