Andheri woman loses ₹13.68 lakh to ‘follow and earn’ racket

Mumbai A 32-year-old woman from Andheri has been duped of ₹13

Mumbai A 32-year-old woman from Andheri has been duped of ₹13.68 lakh by cyber frauds, who trapped her in a ‘follow people on social media and get money’ racket.

Andheri woman loses ₹13.68 lakh to ‘follow and earn’ racket

After their preliminary inquiry, the BKC Cyber police station registered an FIR on the woman’s complaint around four days ago and started their investigation. They suspect that more people could have fallen victim to this racket.

Operating through WhatsApp and Telegram, the racketeers initially asked the complainant to follow people on social media platforms, for which she was paid a small sum. She was then asked to take up a pre-paid service where she had to make advance payments to earn higher profits. And by the time she began to suspect a foul play; she had lost totally a sum of ₹ 13.68 lakh to the fraudsters.

The complainant, an employee of a private firm, lives along with her parents in JP Road area of Andheri West. While she was looking for a new job, on November 28 she received a WhatsApp message from an unknown mobile number. The sender offered her a part time work, to which she reacted positively and started interacting with the person over WhatsApp.

One day, the sender of the message sent two “tasks” to the complainant – to enable her to earn money.

“As per the instructions under the tasks, the complainant followed Instagram accounts of two small time actors. She followed them on the photo sharing social media platform and received ₹210 in her bank account,” said an officer from Cyber police.

She was overjoyed on receipt of the money. Her name and number were later added to a Telegram group where details of money credited to individuals for completing the task were being shared, the police officer added.

However, to make bigger profits, she was asked to take a pre-paid service. After this, she was assigned new tasks and on completing the same, she received ₹ 690 and ₹ 2,800 respectively. But as it was a prepaid job segment, she was asked to make some payments in advance to earn bigger profit, the complainant said in her statement to the police.

She started depositing money in the bank accounts given by the swindlers and ended up losing ₹13.68 lakh in all. Thereafter, she did not get any profit nor did she get back the principal amount. She was asked to pay ₹1 lakh and above to earn big time, but she refused to pay and demanded her money be returned, but in vain.

The complainant followed up on the matter with the operators of WhatsApp and Telegram groups for days, but to no help. She then approached the BKC Cyber police station and filed a complaint.

The cyber police got in touch with the service providers seeking details of the phone numbers and bank accounts used by the racketeers.

Police suspect there could be more victims of similar racket as preliminary probe has revealed that the two small time actors, who was initially followed by the complainant as instructed by the fraudsters, have over 14 lakh and six lakh followers on Instagram, respectively, another officer said.

The police have registered an FIR under sections 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and 66C (identity theft) and 66D (personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.