Pune: Software engineer from Viman Nagar loses Rs 1.8 crore in e-share trading fraud

A techie working in a senior position with a software company in Viman Nagar lost Rs 1.8 crore in e-share trading fraud. The fraud occurred between May 3 and June 5 this year. He approached the Pune Cyber police on Friday night. According to senior inspector Suresh Shinde of the cyber police, the techie’s phone number was added to a group on a messaging application in the first week of May this year. He noticed the group members discussing high profits earned through share trading on a specific platform. He then contacted the group admin and the latter shared a link to a screen software app through which the techie could conduct share trading. In the beginning, the victim used to invest small amounts of money in shares via the given software.

The cyber crooks noticed it and asked him to invest in large-cap shares. The suspects then shared details of several bank accounts and promised to buy shares for him. Therefore, the victim transferred sums from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 35 lakh to nearly 12 different bank accounts.

Overall, he transferred Rs 1.77 crore to these accounts. Upon noticing the high profit displayed on the screen software, the victim decided to sell the shares. However, fraudsters requested him to pay Rs 40 lakh in taxes for the share transactions. The victim became suspicious and requested to get his money back. Following this, the crooks stopped responding and the techie promptly filed a complaint with the police.

In a similar incident, two private firm employees collectively lost Rs 50 lakh in an online investment fraud. Two separate cases have been registered in Ravet and Sanghvi police stations. According to an officer of Sanghvi police, the software engineer (46) residing in Pimple Saudagar was duped Rs 4.24 lakh by cyber crooks in an online share trading fraud between January 16 and February 19 this year.

The victim had initiated a transfer of Rs 19.7 lakh from his and his wife’s bank accounts to the fraudster. In order to encourage the complainant to transfer more, the crook returned Rs 15.76 lakh to the couple. The officer-in-charge found out that the returned money was shared from the bank accounts of other online share fraud victims.

In the case registered in Ravet, the employee (30) working in a private company lost Rs 46 lakh to the cyber crooks between March 24 and May 13. The victim was promised handsome returns in trading stocks. However, after the completion of the money transfer, the victim was unable to withdraw it. Therefore, he approached the police and lodged a complaint. Further investigation is underway.