Pune: The Pune Cyber police have launched an investigation into the biggest cyber fraud to have been reported so far in the city in which an 85-year-old retired entrepreneur from Hadapsar lost Rs22.03 crore between Oct last year and Jan 12 this year to crooks in an online share-trading scam.“In a little over three months, the elderly victim transferred money to 150 accounts, mostly mule, in seven banks in Noida, Kolkata, Bengaluru and other cities. He exhausted all the money he had raised through selling movable and immovable properties after the closure of his company a few years ago,” senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of Pune Cyber police told TOI on Monday.“The crooks used 26 cellphone numbers, including an internet-based phone number, three web links and a bogus cellphone app for online share-trading, to execute the largest cyber fraud — in terms of money involved — recorded so far by Pune Cyber police. In Jan 2023, the police had registered a case of cheating against nine individuals and later arrested them for siphoning off Rs15.3 crore from the accounts of a Pune-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) misusing internet banking passwords and fabricating bank statements,” the officer said. Shinde said the victim’s son and daughter-in-law were software engineers with different infotech companies in the city. The elderly man did not inform or share information with them about the online trading scheme in which he was investing. “Moreover, he ignored mails and messages sent by his bank on multiple occasions, flagging the high-value transfers. The bank had cautioned him by terming these transactions ‘suspicious’ and the need to verify the accounts where the money was being transferred,” the senior inspector said.Additional commissioner of police (crime) Pankaj Deshmukh said, “Based on a complaint by the victim, we have registered a case of cheating, criminal breach of trust, cheating by personation and common intention under the provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and cheating by personation using computer resource or communication device under Section 66-D of the Information Technology Act, and started our investigation.“Shinde cited the complaint and said it all started when the crooks randomly added the victim’s phone number to a group of “investors” on a messaging application in Oct last year. The name of the group was very similar to a share broking firm and the victim went through the messages shared by members of this group discussing high profits earned from their investments, she said.“The victim fell for the trap and contacted the group admin to evince his interest in making investments in online share-trading. The crooks then sent him a link on his messaging application and told him to download an online application for trading shares online. The victim downloaded the application and started buying shares. The crooks then contacted him and told him to go for high-value shares to earn good profit,” the senior inspector said.“They also promised the victim that they would buy shares for him, and the number of shares would be reflected on his share-trading application. The victim trusted them, and the suspects went on sharing different bank account numbers with him for making money transfers,” Shinde said.The victim recently told his son during a conversation that he had invested money in an online share trading platform and the latter got suspicious about these transactions. His son then checked the bank details and they approached the Cyber Police on realising the fraud, the police said.
