Finance firm employee loses Rs around 45 lakh to cyber fraudsters

A private firm employee has fallen prey for the cyber fraudsters who tricked him by offering part-time work. The fraudsters cheated him to the tune of around Rs 45 lakh in 10 days.

The victim is identified as Pradeep AT, 36, working as state head collections, two wheelers department in a private finance company. The Cyber Crime police at the Commissioner of Police office have taken up the case under the Information Technology Act and cheating are investigating the case. The fraudsters introduced themselves as Lin Bahubali, Jasmine Ahuja, Anand, Diya and others.

Pradeep received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number on March 22. The message offered part-time work and he/she can earn a huge amount by completing a few tasks given by them.Pradeep responded to the message.

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He was introduced to a person in a telegram. The fraudster introduced herself as HR of a private firm and thereafter different people contacted him and gave him multiple tasks. Initially Pradeep was asked to create an account in a portal named ‘fczf’. “I was asked to provide ID proof and I submitted my voter ID. After account ID is created they started giving us multiple tasks to invest money in the different portals claiming it is the investment being made in crypto currency. They will assure 20 percent to 30 percent rewards as returns and to make us believe they transfer small amounts from a bank account to our account," Pradeep told DH.

The fraudsters will ask their targets to invest the money within a few seconds to get rewards. Since they continued to make Pradeep invest more money he suspected fishy and stopped making payment on March 31.When Pradeep approached the police they showed him three freezed accounts. In one of the accounts the transactions in two days was around Rs 2 crore.

Fraudsters know that victims wiould file a complaint and get the bank accounts frozen, so they would transfer the money to different accounts, Pradeep said.

A senior officer said that the account from which the fraudsters deposited the money to Pradeep’s account was from an account opened in a bank in Magadi taluk. The fraudsters must have paid commission to the account holder to open the account and give all the details to them.

Another senior officer said, in the past week at least three to four persons had fallen prey to similar fraud in the city and had lost lakhs of rupees. The victims are mainly those who have little knowledge on crypto currency. We have been suggesting people not to respond to any messages offering part-time jobs or investment messages and share their bank account details or transfer the money unless they verify the credentials of the platform thoroughly.

Pradeep has learn’t that the portal in which he was asked to create an account is delisted from Singapore exchange.