Online investment frauds on rise
Online investment frauds are on the rise. In the latest incident, Cyber Crime Police has registered a case against unknown person/persons on the basis of complaint filed by one Varun Jain, a resident of Rani Jhansi Road from whom approximately Rs 52 lakhs were fraudulently taken by a fake online investment company. The case is registered under Section 419, 420, 120- B of the IPC. According to Jain, in May, he got a link from a number +447404945738 which read that by making investments, one could get better profits. Jain started dealing with this unknown company, which kept showing him the profits that were made. And when Jain asked to encash the dividends, he was asked to pay more to get it and in this, Jain lost about Rs 52 lakhs.
His is not an isolated case. In the last about a month, 8-10 such online investment fraud cases have been filed with the Cyber Cell here. Cyber Cell SHO Jatinder Singh said three-four days back, in such a fraud online investment case, a Colonel lost about Rs 90 lakhs.
We do catch hold of suspects in most of the cases but it takes too much time as accounts, where they ask persons to deposit money, are not of the fraudsters but of someone else. Then, through them, we try to catch the miscreant. —Jatinder Singh, Cyber cell SHO
“We are getting many such cases and through media and other platforms, try to caution people not to fall prey to such frauds. The cases are rising still. We do catch hold of them in most of the cases but this takes too much time as the accounts, where they ask persons to deposit money, are not of the fraudsters but of someone else. Then, through them, we try to catch them,” said Singh.
Meanwhile, Akash, a local resident said he was added in a WhatsApp group by some unknown person and they started giving tasks to rate the hotels for which they started paying Rs 50 for each task. “Generally 20-25 tasks were given and initially I got about Rs 1,200-1,500 each day for two-three days and then a financial task came which asked to deposit Rs 2,000 and get Rs 2,800 within half an hour. I performed that too and got the money and then a similar task of Rs 5,000 was given in which they were to provide Rs 6,500. I performed that and after that I found the group has disappeared. Tried to look for everything but to no avail,” Akash said.
It is not just the investment frauds, people offer loans through various sites and during the course, the seeker provides all the bank details and even gets the loan at almost 40 per cent interest rate. When the amount is not returned, the agents, through the OTPs given by the loan-seeker, get all the contacts of the person and start blackmailing him by sending his objectionable pictures (morphed) to his contacts. “And there is no end to this harassment,” said one of the residents in Janakpuri Area, whose pictures were circulated to all his contacts.
