An accountant working at a multinational company lost a whopping ₹4.43 crore to a fake stock trading brokerage app in the city.
The victim lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police recently after he realised he was duped. But it was too late, police said.
In his complaint, the victim said that he got a message on WhatsApp asking to join a group, “Stock Market Winner VIP 1”. There were 129 members in the group. The administrator of the group introduced himself as the one running an application, ‘Metapolen,’ which had a tie-up with an American stock broking firm. When someone raised doubts about the firm, one of the members who claimed to be a police officer said he checked with his “Police vigilance Department” contacts and said the firm was registered with SEBI and other regulatory bodies.
In the group, an advisor used to share tips to pick stocks that the victim invested in through the ‘Metapolen’ application. He withdrew some money on October 3, and the money was duly credited to his account. After this, the victim said he believed the application and invested a total of ₹4.43 crore in a total of eight transactions, of which four transactions were from his two friend’s accounts.
Following this, when he tried to withdraw a part of the money, his request was denied, and he was asked to make a payment of ₹1.18 crore as he had allegedly violated the “lock-in period for QIB IPO”. Realising that he was cheated, he lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police.
A senior police official said that despite several similar cases being reported and the city police appealing to citizens not to invest in any unknown application or join any Whatsapp or Telegram groups that they are added to unasked for, people continue to fall prey to the same.
Published - November 02, 2024 12:19 am IST
