Man lured to invest in crypto, loses ₹85 lakh to frauds

A man in Mumbai lost ₹85 lakh to a woman he met on a dating app who claimed to make money from cryptocurrency investments. He realized he had been duped in 2023 when he couldn't withdraw any money or contact the woman. The police have registered a case against the unknown accused.

MUMBAI: A man was duped of ₹85 lakh by an unknown woman he met on a dating app in October 2021. The woman told him that she was earning good money by investing in crypto currency and lured him in to invest. It was only in 2023, that he relaised he had been duped as he could not withdraw any money and had lost all contact with the woman.

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The 39-year-old complainant from Juhu, who runs a company, told the police that the woman posed as a Chinese national working in Singapore and had a business supplying Chinese food articles to the United States of America.

“They shared each other’s numbers and started chatting and calling regularly. During one of her interactions, she told him that she was earning a lot of money from her investments in crypto currency and shared screenshots of the huge amounts of the profit she made,” said a police officer.

The woman told the complainant that her uncle, who recently retired as a financial analyst from a forex trading company in New York, was guiding her in her investments. She then shared a link to a website that looked like a New Zealand-based bitcoin trading website with the complainant to encourage him to open an account and make investments.

Relying on the woman’s ‘experience’ he opened an account through the link provided by her and slowly started investing, hoping for considerable returns. Subsequently, over a period, he invested ₹85.54 lakh. “Initially, his account showed huge profits, and the complainant was motivated to invest more, only to realise, that he was cheated, as he could not withdraw either his principal amounts or the profits earned on his investment, said the police officer.

In June 2023, he met a crypto currency expert, who analysed his investments and said his money was further invested in 24 final wallets of eight crypto exchanges. Following this he found that all his communication was cut off, and the mobile numbers of all the people involved, including the woman, were switched off.

Based on the expert’s report, the cybercrime unit of the Mumbai crime branch registered a case against the unknown accused under sections 420 (cheating), 34 (common intention), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 419 (personation), 465 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code and under section 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The modus is not new and has been used by frauds for quite some time now, but people still fall for such ploys, hoping to earn large sums in short periods, said the police officer.