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A 67-year-old entrepreneur from Pune fell victim to an astounding Rs 1. 86 crore loss in an online stock trading scam, where he was tricked into utilizing a deceptive phone-based stock trading app. Throughout a duration of 20 days, the complainant conducted 20 transactions, during which he was led to think that his investment of Rs 1. 86 crore had inflated to Rs 54 crore, the Indian Express reported.

An FIR in the case was filed recently at the Cyber Police station of Pune city by a 67-year-old resident of Kothrud who operates a manufacturing unit of electrical systems. In November last year, the complainant found an advertisement about a share trading platform. Upon clicking the link in the advertisement, he was added to a WhatsApp group consisting of more than 130 members. The two administrators of the group were sharing messages regarding various stock trading opportunities while the members were posting messages about substantial profits they were making on their investments. Convinced that the deceitful WhatsApp group was legitimate and all the fraudulent messages were accurate, the complainant monitored them for more than two weeks.

According to the report, when one of the administrators sent him a private message and requested him to join a phone-based application, the complainant promptly joined. The complainant was requested to register on this deceptive stock trading application by providing his details. The complainant began making ‘investments’ in this fraudulent application based on the guidance he was receiving from the group administrators. He was instructed to transfer all these amounts to various mule accounts registered in Chennai, Delhi, Darjeeling, Solan in Himachal Pradesh, Coimbatore, Surat, Howrah in West Bengal, among others.

Every transaction was being displayed on the fraudulent trading application along with the associated profit. After a period of 20 days, in relation to the 'investment' of Rs 1. 86 crore, the counterfeit app was showing profits of Rs 54 crores. When the complainant attempted to withdraw some funds, he was required to pay 20 percent of the total gains as 'service fees'. It was at this moment that he understood he had been deceived and went to the Cyber crime police station to file a complaint, reported the Indian Express.