In a hope to ‘double investments’, a businessman from Himayatnagar of Hyderabad lost over ₹5.40 crore of his life savings to cyber fraudsters.
The victim, who did not want to be named, was approached by cyber criminals via WhatsApp with a ‘lucrative’ stock investment opportunity. What followed was a series of transactions on a fake investment platform and soon after the fraudsters went incommunicado.
This is just one among the 8,755 cases reported in July, exceeding the June record by close to 1,500 cases. The second half of the year was on to a troubling start in terms of cybercrime cases with the citizens losing ₹183.24 crore, data from the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGSCB) revealed. Of the lost amount, only ₹23.39 crore has been put on hold so far.
In the case cited above, reported on July 29, only ₹34.47 lakh has been frozen so far in various bank accounts.
Among the modus operandi, business and investment frauds, targeting citizens across age groups and professions through unauthorised trading applications, retained the top position last month. In 1,866 cases, citizens reported loses to the tune of ₹113.04 crore.
In a similar case, a victim from Kondapur of the Cyberabad Commissionerate ended up losing a whopping ₹5.27 crore after being promised double of his investment as return.
In this case, he was approached through his Facebook profile and was asked to register himself on a website to continue his investment journey. Soon after a case was registered on July 8, ₹1.26 crore has been saved.
In another case that made to ‘trending list’ in Telangana in July, a victim from Ramachandrapuram village in Medak was duped of ₹4.98 crore in the popular impersonation and cheating fraud.
On July 1, he received a call from ‘Airtel’ informing him about his involvement in a money laundering case connected with Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal. Believing that the ‘Mumbai Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)‘ is investigating the case, he transferred all his money for ‘checking’, to never get it again. Interestingly, just two days before this was reported, another man from Hyderabad, who received a call from ‘State Bank of India’ – was conned of ₹5.40 crore.
