Mumbai News: 230% Spike In Online Share Investment Frauds; Victims Duped via Fake Apps, WhatsApp Groups

There has been a whopping 230 percent increase in online shares investment fraud related cyber-crime cases registered in Mumbai from January to April this year, the statistics have revealed. The statistics provided by the city police revealed that in January, 93 cases of shares investment fraud were registered in Mumbai, which reached 308 cases in April. The statistics further revealed that out of 308 cases, only 23 cases were detected and 22 persons were arrested in these cases.

According to the police, in order to pull off their con, the scammers first advertise their investment schemes on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Telegram and induce the victim to join a WhatsApp group created by them, that provides information on stock trading. In the said WhatsApp group, the members who are part of the scammer group make bogus claims of having earned huge profits through the guidance provided by the "experts" present in the group.

The victims are then asked to download a bogus trading application and are asked to invest money in the stock market through it and are then induced to send money in different bank accounts and the victim could see their earnings in the said app. However, when the victim tries to withdraw the said money, their requests are denied and instead they are asked to pay more money on different pretexts.

As per the police, one should avoid downloading apps from third-party stores, websites or through links received in social media posts, chats or SMS. "People should download applications only from trusted sources like legitimate websites or authorized app stores. The investor should properly verify the app details in the developer's website or app stores before downloading it and enable Multi-Factor Authentication in all sensitive information related apps. A victim of such scams can report to 1930 immediately or visit https://www.cybercrime.gov.in," said a police officer.

Earlier this month, the cyber cell of Mumbai police had registered a case wherein a man from Lower Parel was duped by scammers of Rs 1.44 crore after being lured into investing in the stock market with promises of high returns.