Mumbai: The west region cyber police are probing two cases where complainants were lured with high returns in online share trading leading to a loss of Rs 3 crore.In the first case, a transport businessman lost over Rs 2 crore when he joined a WhatsApp group. He sent money to various bank accounts provided by a woman. In the second case, a 50-year-old man, working for a start-up, lost over Rs 40 lakh after the same set of accused duped him of Rs 41 lakh.The businessman received a WhatsApp message with the name of a known share trading company. The message sender communicated with him in a highly professional manner. The accused added the businessman to two WhatsApp groups. A woman, Sharon Trivedi, and Mehul Goyal, among others, were group admins. The accused sent him a link and made him download an app. The group admins lured him by saying he would get a 200% profit if he traded through their app. The accused gave him bank account numbers and Trivedi asked him to deposit money. He transferred money and could see his investment and profit in the app. In 12 transactions, he sent a total of Rs 2.53 crore. When he tried to withdraw money he couldn’t. Trivedi told him to deposit Rs 2 crore. He realised it was a fraud and went to the police.In the second case, the complainant told police he saw an ad about online share trading. He clicked a link and was added to a WhatsApp group whose admins were Goyal, Trivedi, and others. He was asked to download an app for trading and given bank accounts to transfer money for trading.Two days after he started sending money, he tried to withdraw money and could withdraw Rs 100. Later, he sent Rs 40.54 lakh. On May 20, Trivedi told him that the value of his investment was Rs 2.18 crore and said she had subscribed to an IPOfor Rs 3.09 crore for him. She asked him to pay Rs 91.55 lakh more. He said he didn’t have money and asked her to return his investment, but she refused.
