Techie at Citibank loses over 1 crore in stock market investment scam

Hyderabad: A 41-year-old techie working at Citibank in Pune lost over Rs 1.5 crore in an online stock market investment scam after fraudsters posing as investment advisers made him install a fake app, police said. Based on his complaint, the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) registered a case on Thursday.The victim, from Madhira in Khammam district, began investing money into what he believed was a high-return equities platform after he was introduced to it by his sister, who clicked on a stock-market investment advertisement on Instagram last Nov. She was added to WhatsApp groups titled, ‘Z926 one-to-one Service' and ‘L Accel Partners Stock Exchange Group,' where fraudsters promised profits of up to 500%.
One of the fraudsters, using the name Deeksha Bhandari, persuaded her to download an application called ‘ACEFD.' After transferring about Rs 60,000 to different bank accounts provided by the fraudsters, the victim's sister provided his contact number to them.Using a link provided by the fraudsters, the victim installed ‘AcceSec' app on his phone. Posing as relationship managers, the fraudsters supplied multiple bank accounts and guided the family through every transfer while displaying fake balances inside the app. Between Nov 19 and Jan 14, the victim and his sister transferred funds from six different bank accounts to nine recipient accounts in different banks.The accused kept encouraging the victim by crediting Rs 1.3 lakh to his bank account on Dec 9. Seeing his on-screen balance swell to Rs 36 crore by Jan 12, the victim tried to withdraw his money but was told to first pay a service charge of Rs 36 lakh, followed by an income-tax deposit of Rs 20 lakh. After paying the ‘taxes' and transferring over Rs 1.56 crore in total, the fraudsters stopped further communication, prompting the victim to approach TGCSB police on Thursday evening.Police registered a case under sections 61(2) (criminal conspiracy punishment), 318(4) (cheating), 319(2) (cheating by personation), 338 (Forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 340(2) (Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the BNS, and 66C and 66D of the ITA Act.