A 56-year-old man in Bengaluru lost Rs 6.54 crore in an online stock trading scam after he was led into a trap by scamsters promising a 1,500 per cent return on his investments through a phony app. Ramesh Kumar, director of a private firm, used to trade stocks through his demat account and watch YouTube channels for stock advice and updates. In a similar online crime last year, a retiree, another Bengaluru resident, lost Rs 9.14 crore to fraudsters.
Police say that Kumar’s case is the biggest loss to a single victim in the city this year. His troubles started when he joined a WhatsApp group for online trading classes on August 11, 2024. Someone named Aniketh Nerkar added him to the “Nuuama Elite Group”. According to the FIR, he took online lessons on investment methods and trades for about a month.
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According to one officer, several tips provided in the group were spot on. “This is one way that scammers persuade victims. We have learnt that the tips they offer will be on stocks already on the way up or have the potential to go up the following days,” the officer told Deccan Herald.
Kumar was reportedly surprised at the “success stories” shared on the WhatsApp group. He was also promised a 1,500 per cent return on his investments. “These folks that upload screenshots of their winnings are planted by scammers to persuade the victim that the programme is legitimate. The same thing happened in this case,” the officer explained. Kumar subsequently began sending money to scammers via a trading app, whose link was supplied by the scammers.
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As of October 14, 2024, he transferred Rs 6.54 crore to 12 bank accounts. “All the while, the app showed simulations that Kumar was making crores of rupees in profits from his investments in stocks and initial public offerings (IPOs),” according to the officer.
When the time came to withdraw, Kumar was asked to pay Rs 2.5 crore in fees, which raised doubt and prompted him to lodge a complaint with the cybercrime branch on October 16. A team led by Assistant Police Commissioner (Northeast CEN) Tanveer S.R. is currently probing the case.
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“The investigators have begun freezing the primary (first beneficiary) bank accounts and tracing the money trail,” the officer said, adding all accounts used in this case were “mule accounts”.
