chandigarh@hindustantimes.com
Chandigarh
A resident of Sector 63 has fallen victim to a cryptocurrency scam, losing ₹37 lakh to fraudsters on the pretext of higher returns.
Complainant Neha Sharma told police that she received a message on her WhatsApp number on March 10, inviting her to join a group with 313 members, offering small tasks to earn money while working from home. Initially, she was asked to follow channels on WhatsApp, for which she received payments.
Encouraged by the small initial earnings, Sharma was then added to a Telegram group named “1944 Global Working Group” and directed to pay ₹2,000 to an account number. She received ₹2,800 in return. Following this, she was persuaded to invest larger amounts.
The fraudsters, using Telegram and WhatsApp, convinced Sharma to invest progressively larger sums of money into a supposed cryptocurrency investment scheme. They provided a link to create an account and track her investments:
Sharma was repeatedly asked to transfer money to various bank accounts, with the assurance that these amounts were being credited to her investment account. The fraudsters created an illusion of genuine transactions by showing increasing amounts in her supposed cryptocurrency account each time she transferred money.
The total amount transferred eventually amounted to ₹37 lakh. Despite her repeated requests to withdraw her money, the fraudsters kept demanding more investments under the guise of completing tasks.
She finally approached the police on realising that she has been duped. An FIR under Sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code was registered. The police are actively investigating the case to trace the perpetrators and recover the lost amount.
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