FPJ Cyber Secure: 18-Year-Old Duped Of ₹3.58 lakh By Cyber Fraudsters After Promising 11 Fold Returns In 12 Hours

An 18-year-old, who is studying B Tech at the VJTI engineering college, lost ₹3.58 lakh after falling prey to cyber fraudsters who promised an eleven-fold return on investments in just 12 hours. Hailing from Nanded, the aggrieved stays at the college's boys hostel in Matunga.

Lured by clickbait of a man’s story who got rich by simply trading

On May 18, he received a link on his WhatsApp about a Telegram account – @Trader_Lee_Shaun – with a clickbait of a man’s story who got rich simply by trading. The account offered bitcoin trading lessons and enticed the student to take its “advantage and make investments”.

Subsequently, he received a message, saying, “All you need is a minimum start-up amount of ₹5,000 to earn a huge profit of ₹55,000 in 12 hours.”

The student hastily paid the amount, but was then asked to send Rs10,000 for “creating an account”. Later, the account reflected a profit of ₹65,000 and ₹6,000 was sought from him as “commission fees”. In this manner, he ended up paying ₹34,500.

When tried to withdraw his profit, the account's status was labelled blocked. He later received an email from info@forextrademaxearn.com, asking for money in lieu of activating the account. A list of UPI IDs was sent as well. Eager to get his profit, the student made around eight transactions and paid a total of ₹3.58 lakh.

Case registered with Matunga Police

On July 13, he was again told to pay ₹1.23 lakh as “approval fees”. At this point, the youth sensed the fraud and lodged a police complaint. He has submitted the list of UPI IDs on which he paid the money along with the phone numbers through which he spoke with the cons.

A case has been registered under sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security) and 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, said the Matunga police.