Police said they have arrested 16 individuals from Bengaluru, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Delhi, Faridabad, Lucknow, and Gurgaon in connection with a case involving the cheating of a chartered accountant’s daughter from Faridabad of Rs 7.6 crore. The cheating was carried out under the guise of investing in stocks through Facebook links.
On January 4, the woman, who has been trading in the stock market for about two years and works with her father in a management company in Delhi, received a link on Facebook promising lucrative returns.
After clicking on the link, she found herself directed to a WhatsApp group named “ICICI IR TEAM (57)” where members seemed to be generating substantial profits. Encouraged by the apparent success of the group, she decided to invest her own money in the stock market.
Shortly afterward, the fraudsters added the victim to another group called “C6Ram Investment Academy” and instructed her to add funds through customer service. Following these instructions, the woman invested varying amounts of money into different bank accounts.
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What Did the Victim From Faridabad Say?
A woman named Kareena Rajput contacted the victim, claiming to represent an investment trading company. Kareena mentioned that she had obtained the victim’s bank details from their customer service to facilitate fund transfers. Subsequently, on March 19, the victim initiated a transfer of Rs 1 lakh from her bank account, followed by another transfer of Rs 60 lakh on March 21.
She continued depositing more money as they assured her that the shares were profitable. I transferred Rs 90 lakh from my father’s account and Rs 15 lakh from my mother’s account. The largest transaction I made was for Rs 4 crore, totaling my ‘investment’ to Rs 7.6 crore. When I asked them to return my money along with the profits, they attempted to convince me to invest more. That was the moment I realized they were cheating me.”
Amit Kumar, in-charge of the cyber police station, stated that the accused had devised a well-orchestrated scheme to entice individuals into investing in the stock market through these groups. They converted the funds into USDT (a cryptocurrency) and transferred them to accounts in China.
The police arrested several individuals, including Prashant Kumar from Bengaluru, Syed Md. Zeeshan, and Syed Suhel from Uttar Pradesh, Hari Kishan and Ram Singh alias Dhallu from Bikaner, Akash and Rohit from Delhi, Mahendra alias Ritesh and Dinesh Kumar from Jodhpur, Rinku, Indrajit, and Rahul (an MTech graduate) from Bikaner, Dipendra from UP, and another Dinesh Kumar from Bikaner.
According to the police, they recovered 24 mobile phones, 556 SIM cards, 67 cheque books, and 62 ATM cards, along with Rs 15.2 lakh in cash.
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