A 52-year-old chartered accountant has lodged a complaint with the Mumbai police after he was allegedly duped of Rs 23 lakh by unknown cyber fraudsters under the pretext of earning high returns through investment in the stock market.
The incident took place between April 4 and June 3 this year, police said. According to the complainant, who lives with his family in Malad, on April 12 he came across an advertisement on social media from IIFL Securities promoting investment in the stock market. “It said that investing in stock market shares would yield huge profits and asked to click on the given link for more information,” the complaint read.
The chartered accountant clicked on the link to get more information and was added to a WhatsApp group named “555 IIFL Securities Add Learning Add Exchange”. He found that there were 139 other people in the group and that one Gaurav Sharma, along with his assistant Mauli Agrawal, were managing it.
Sharma introduced himself as an advisor at IIFL Securities and claimed that he would help the CA with daily analysis of share trading and also share information about buying and selling shares. “The CA observed the messages in the group for a couple of days and saw that many people were thanking Sharma and Agrawal for helping them generate profits. Subsequently, they contacted him personally, asked for his details, and sent SEBI documents claiming that they were registered brokers,” an officer involved in the investigation said.
Enticed by their promise of high profits, the complainant agreed to invest with them. He then downloaded their application on his mobile and created an account..
“On the app, a list of stocks to buy and sell was provided at 9.30 am every day. I would buy and sell shares accordingly, and other members of the group would post about their profits, which made me feel confident about investing money in the stock market. I started trusting them as I was making profits from buying and selling shares as per their instructions,” the complainant’s statement read.
The complainant claimed that he had invested around Rs 30 lakh by June 3 through the application, which showed that he had earned a profit of around Rs 50 lakh.
“In between, he withdrew Rs 7 lakh, and as they allowed him to do so, he trusted them further. However, in mid-June, when he showed interest in withdrawing more money, the fraudsters started asking him for a 25 per cent commission. As they began harassing him for money, he realised that he had been duped,” said an officer.
The CA initially lodged a complaint at the helpline number, after which he submitted a complaint with the cyber police station. After a preliminary inquiry, a case was registered on Monday.
