Powai bizman loses ₹1.38 cr to online share trading fraud

The gang lured him in with promises of high returns and convinced him into investing in ‘shares’ by posting ‘tips’ from ‘experts’ and false testimonies by people who said they earned huge profits using the tips.

MUMBAI: A 52-year-old Powai businessman lost ₹1.38 crore to online share trading fraud after being randomly added to a WhatsApp group and falsely made into believing he was investing in the share market. The gang lured him in with promises of high returns and convinced him into investing in ‘shares’ by posting ‘tips’ from ‘experts’ and false testimonies by people who said they earned huge profits using the tips.

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The West Cyber police station has registered an FIR in connection with the fraud. According to the police, the complainant, P Aggarwal, was added to a WhatsApp group named ‘VIP K-Harry Singh Fan’ on January 8 by an unknown person.

On checking the group, Aggarwal noticed that the members discussed about how to make quick profits by using the tips shared by the group admin, even sharing screenshots of their bank balance as proof. The admin, who identified himself as Hari Singh, soon contacted Aggarwal and convinced him to download and install an application called “Point Bre” on his mobile handset.

Thereafter, a customer service manager, who identified himself only as Arun, persuaded him to purchase ‘shares’ through the fraud application by depositing money in certain bank accounts numbers that he provided.

When the account started reflecting a total of ₹5.86 crore, he tried to withdraw the amount but was unsuccessful. When he contacted the customer service manager and the group admin, they started giving vague excuses about why he was not being allowed to withdraw any amount, not even the principal amount that he had invested.

Realising that he had fallen victim to an elaborate fraud, Aggarwal went to the West Cyber police station last week and submitted a written complaint on the basis of which an FIR was registered against “unknown persons” under relevant sections of the IT Act. and BNS.