Pune: A 36-year-old software engineer from Shewalwadi near Hadapsar lost Rs 2.3 crore between Jan 26 and March 11 after falling for high returns bait in an online share-trading scam.The Pune cyber police registered an FIR on Monday after verifying her complaint application.Senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of the Pune cyber police told TOI, “The complainant works with an IT firm in Hadapsar. She has been on leave for the past seven to eight months.”Shinde, citing the FIR, said, “The woman stated in her complaint that the crooks added her cellphone number to a group on a messaging application. The members in the group discussed high returns generated through online share-trading and thanked the group admin for trading tips.”The complainant contacted the group admin and expressed interest in earning through share-trading. The admin promised to help her and sent a link to a share-trading application.“The group admin asked her to use the application to buy and sell shares. The techie downloaded the app and initially started buying low-value shares. Later, the admin contacted her and persuaded her to invest in high-value shares and IPOs,” Shinde said.“To gain her confidence, the fraudsters allowed her to sell some shares at a profit and even transferred Rs 20,000 to her as returns,” Shinde added.“The fraudsters then promised to assist her in buying high-value shares and asked her to transfer money to five bank accounts. As she was at home, the techie used her savings and borrowed from relatives and transferred funds to the fraudsters’ accounts,” Shinde said.“In less than two months, the techie transferred a total of Rs 2.3 crore to these five bank accounts,” she added.“The fraudulent trading application showed a profit of over Rs 4 crore. When the techie attempted to withdraw or sell shares, the fraudsters prevented her from doing so,” police said.
