Uttarakhand / Almora: By pretending to be a bank officer, he lured people with high profits and cheated them of crores of rupees

A case of fraud has come to light from Almora. Where the accused, posing as bank officials, lured the victim with more profits and defrauded him of crores. On the basis of the complaint of the victim, the police have registered a case and arrested the accused.

Lured by posing as a representative of HDFC Securities

Giving information, SSP STF Ayush Aggarwal said that the victim, a resident of Almora, had given a complaint regarding the matter in August 2024. In which it was told that a few days ago he had received a call and message on WhatsApp from an unknown number. In which the unknown person introduced himself as a representative of HDFC Securities.

Amount of 1 crore 36 lakhs deposited

The unknown person asked him to join a WhatsApp group. Along with this, he asked to download HDFC VIP application and invest. The victim got deceived and downloaded the app. After which, an amount of about Rs 1 crore 36 lakh was fraudulently deposited in various bank accounts provided by him through WhatsApp call for trading in the application.

The accused used to deceive the victim by luring him with profits

When the victim invested in the newly issued IPO by luring him with high profits, the cyber criminals showed him an amount of about 8 crore rupees including profits in his dashboard within a few days. Taking the matter seriously, investigation of the case was started.

The cheated amount was transferred to a different account

The cyber crime police obtained data by corresponding with the concerned banks, service provider companies and Meta and Google to get information about the bank accounts, mobile numbers and WhatsApp used in the incident. Analysis of the data received revealed that the accused had transferred the cheated amount from the victim to different bank accounts.

The accused had transferred the amount of Rs 48.5 lakh to the current account of a firm named Sengar Telecom. The accused had registered mobile numbers taken from fake IDs in these bank accounts as SMS alerts. Police arrested accused Abhinav Raj Singh Sengar (24) and Mukesh Yadav (26) from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

This is how the accused committed the fraud

The accused cheated the victim by making WhatsApp calls and messages, giving him information about investing in the stock market and trading in IPOs, adding him to WhatsApp groups through links and doing online trading, and downloading a fake HDFC VIP HDFC Securities application on mobile phones, and making him believe that he will earn profit in the new share issue (IPO), and committed fraud worth crores of rupees in the name of investment. The criminals used to transfer the money obtained by fraud to their firm’s bank accounts through IMPS / RTGS.

The accused used to commit the crime using their own SIM cards and their firm’s accounts for the said work. To lure the victim, the profit amount was shown on the dashboard of the HDFC VIP mobile application, similar to HDFC Securities. During interrogation, the accused told that the mobile numbers and email IDs linked to their bank accounts were used for internet banking.