Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Almost 50 people based in Bhopal have fallen prey to a new modus operandi adopted by the cyber crooks; investing money in foreign shares, the cyber cell officials said on Thursday. A total of 50 complaints have been lodged at the city cyber cell in the past seven months of this year, the officials said.
Assistant Commissioner of police (Cyber) Sujeet Tiwari told Free Press that among the ones duped is also a renowned cricketer, who ended up losing as much as Rs 72 lakh to the scam. ACP Tiwari said that the cricketer, who did not wish to be named, had heard about investment in foreign shares on social media, where the people who had invested their money had claimed to have gained handsome profits, after which he too, invested Rs 72 lakh, but ended up losing the amount.
ACP Tiwari said that the vicious process begins with a phone call made to the target person, who offers him/her to invest money in foreign shares. The caller makes the target person download an application on his/her phone, or adds them to a WhatsApp group.
On the group, scores of people upload messages about earning handsome profits after investing into foreign shares. Once the target person begins investing their money through the link provided by the caller, their withdrawal is frozen. The caller then demands more money to unlock the withdrawal channel and claim the earned amount, which never happens, following which, the balance on the application is displayed zero, and the caller breaks all contacts with the victim.
State cyber cell SP Vaibhav Shrivastava told Free Press that as many as 600 complaints pertaining to the said fraud have been received at the MP state cyber cell. All the cases are being probed, he added.
