Cons pose as stock advisers, cheat doctor of ₹1.7cr

Hyderabad: A 50-year-old doctor from Bazar Ghat lost ₹1.76 crore after investing in stocks through a fake application on the advice of fraudsters posing as stock market investment advisers.The victim approached the Hyderabad Cyber Crime police on Thursday, stating that in March 2026, he had seen an Instagram advertisement offering handsome returns on stock market investments.After clicking on the advertisement, he was contacted on WhatsApp by a woman who identified herself as Pratima Bansal. She promised high returns on the investment and told him that no charges would be levied until the client achieved a 200% profit.“She said that only if I secured a 200% profit, a 20% short-term capital gains tax would apply for withdrawing the amount,” the victim said.Bansal provided the victim with a link to install an app called ‘zanska-pro.top’. After PAN verification, he was given a trading account on the app. Following the fraudsters’ instructions, the victim continued transferring money, while the dashboard on the app showed a total balance of ₹14.08 crore.“However, when I tried to withdraw the money, the fraudsters asked me to pay taxes, service fees and verification charges to process the withdrawal. Despite paying all the fees, the withdrawal was not permitted, and they kept demanding more money. When I refused, the WhatsApp group and the app were shut down, and the fraudsters stopped responding to messages,” the victim said.The victim said he had transferred more than ₹1.76 crore between March 27 and May 14 to various bank accounts provided by the accused via the app.Based on his complaint, a case was registered under Sections 66C and 66D of the IT Act, along with Sections 318(4) (cheating), 319(2) (cheating by personation), 336(3) (forgery for cheating), and 340(2) (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the BNS.