MUMBAI: Two educated women from well-off families fell prey to separate instances of share trading frauds in which they were tricked into downloading fake trade apps and lost crores. The women realised they were taken for a ride only when they were unable to withdraw their investments.
In the first case, a 42-year-old woman from Mulund lost Rs 1.2 crore. She has told the police that she saw an advertisement about trading on Facebook in August and clicked on a link mentioned in it. Her phone number wasadded to a WhatsApp group where share trade tips were given out.
Subsequently, one of those men running the group, who identified himself as Ravi Agarwal, convinced her to download a trading app, ‘Mstock Max‘, which, had options like ‘trade’, ‘IPO’, ‘deposit’, ‘withdraw’. The woman followed instructions and traded through through the app. The app showed regular profits accumulating in her profile.
By October, she had invested Rs 1.2 crore via the trading app, but when she tried to withdraw the sum, Agarwal told her that 20% of it would be deducted as penalty. She stopped investing any more money. On the basis of her complaint, the Cyber Police registered an FIR against an unknown person on Nov 29.
In the second case, a 53-year-old homemaker from Khar was cheated of Rs 78 lakh. She too had found a share trading advertisement on Facebook. On clicking a link in the advertisement, her number was added to a WhatsApp group. One Geetika Anand, running the group, got her to download an app, ZeradhA.
Between Oct and Nov, she invested Rs 78 lakh through this app. Her profile on the app showed a 200% profit. When she tried to withdraw money, Anand claimed that a 20% penalty would be charged. That’s when her chartered accountant told her that she had been duped.
