1 month ago
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An 80-year-old nonmigratory of Cox Town successful Bengaluru has fallen unfortunate to a monolithic cyber fraud, losing implicit ₹2.51 crore to scammers posing arsenic slope officials.
The unfortunate — Vaidyanathan — filed a ailment with the East Division Cyber Crime Police connected April 4, stating that unidentified persons impersonating officials of a backstage slope lured him into investing successful fake banal marketplace schemes.
According to Vaidyanathan, the fraud began successful January 2026 erstwhile helium clicked connected a Facebook advertisement promoting banal tips and artifact trading successful Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), falsely claiming relation with a backstage slope and its securities wing. After submitting his idiosyncratic details done a link, helium was contacted by a pistillate identifying herself arsenic ‘Anvika Mehra’, and respective others operating done aggregate telephone numbers.
The accused persuaded him to put done 2 mobile applications (KOTMOT and KOTPRO), disposable connected the Google Play Store. Over time, the apps showed that his concern of ₹2.51 crore had astir doubled to ₹5 crore.
The scammers past pressured him to deposit an further ₹3 crore to unafraid an alleged IPO allotment, which aboriginal turned retired to beryllium fraudulent. Vaidyanathan attempted to interaction the lawsuit enactment numbers provided wrong a WhatsApp radical posing arsenic Securities Support for the backstage bank, but did not person immoderate assistance.
Police said Vaidyanathan carried retired 23 transactions amounting to conscionable implicit ₹2.5 crore from his relationship betwixt February 23 and March 24. All funds were routed to aggregate slope accounts controlled by the fraudsters.
Realising that helium had been cheated, Vaidyanathan approached the cyber transgression police, who person registered a lawsuit against chartless persons nether Sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000, on with Section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023.
An probe is underway to hint the accused and retrieve the wealth taken from Vaidyanathan by fraud.
