Cyber fraud: Meerut man loses Rs 1.84 crore to fake trading website

Cases of cyber fraud in India have been increasing with people losing lakhs of money. Such a case has also been reported from Uttar Pradesh's Meerut where a man has claimed that he has been duped of Rs 1.84 crore over multifold benefits promised by a website, police officials said on Tuesday.

They also said that another case of cyber fraud was reported in neighbouring Ghaziabad where a man alleged that he has lost Rs 95 lakh believing in a job offer abroad. Both cases have been lodged at the Noida Cyber Crime police station in Sector 36 and are under investigation, Inspector Reeta Yadav, the inspector in-charge of the police station who is leading the probe, told PTI.

First case in Meerut

Meerut-based businessman Yogendra Kumar Chaudhary (40) has claimed that he has lost Rs 1.84 crore, which he had 'invested' on a trading website --  gicsingapore.com.

"He said he was introduced to the website -- gicsingapore.com -- in July 2021 by a woman, who identified herself as Annie. She contacted him over the phone and WhatsApp, and informed him of the lucrative returns from the website for those who opened a trading account on it," a cyber police official said.

Chaudhary, who is into the real estate business, was lured into investing money through the website. Initially, he got lucrative returns on smaller investment amounts running into lakhs. He was also able to retrieve the return amount from his bank accounts linked to the website.

"He continued investing money but when he invested Rs 1.84 crore and expected a huge return, he could no longer retrieve the money," the official added.

Second case in Ghaziabad

A Ghaziabad-based Tarun Chauhan said he has been duped of Rs 95.9 lakh by a Poland-based firm that had contacted him with a job offer in the last quarter of 2021.

"The company had also conducted a telephonic interview with him on December 28 and 29 last year. After that they started asking Chauhan for fund transfers on the pretext of fees for visa request, work permit, travel insurance and various other reasons. He said he made a total of 35 transactions against various invoices sent by the firm, totalling Rs 95.9 lakh," the cyber police official said.

Chauhan, 35, a senior management official with a private firm, said the last communication he had with the Poland-based company was in April when he was informed that he would get an appointment offer from Bayer Corp., an immigration agency on April 25.

He said after that the representatives of the firm went incommunicado. He went to the Polish embassy in Delhi where the officials informed him that the documents he was given by the firm were fake. When contacted, Inspector Yadav said FIRs have been registered in both cases and investigations launched immediately.

"We have got some clues and leads. We are working on those and ensuring that the cases are worked out at the earliest so that the duped money could be recovered," she told PTI.

Meanwhile, officials urged the public to report cyber crime cases on dedicated helpline numbers 1930 and 112. They also asked the public to be cautious during financial transactions online.

(With inputs from PTI)