Three Coimbatore residents lose 4.5 crore to online fraudsters

Coimbatore: Three city residents have lost more than Rs4.5 crore to cyber fraudsters in as many separate incidents recently.In one of the incidents, a retired govt officer was cheated of Rs1.24 crore in a digital arrest scam. He received a WhatsApp video call in March from a person who introduced himself as a police officer in Mumbai, a police officer said. "The caller claimed that the retired officer's Aadhaar card and bank account details were used for money laundering and asked him to transfer the money in his bank account for verification with an assurance that it will be returned after inquiry. Believing this, the retired officer transferred the amount to the bank accounts provided by the fraudster in three transactions," the officer said. When the retired govt officer realized that he was cheated, he lodged a police complaint. In another incident, a businessman lost Rs1.44 crore to an online investment scam. "He saw an advertisement on social media about stock market investment, promising high returns. He contacted the number mentioned in the advertisement and followed the instructions given. He invested Rs1.44 crore in various transactions between Feb and March. When he tried to withdraw the money from his trading account, he was unable to do so and realized that he was cheated," the officer said. In the remaining incident, a software engineer from the city was cheated of Rs1.85 crore. "In March, his mobile number was added to a WhatsApp investment group. Inspired by the stories of profits shared by the group members, he contacted the group admin and invested Rs1.85 crore in the past two months. Although his trading account showed a balance of more than Rs3 crore, he was unable to withdraw the money," the officer said. He said all three victims were aged above 60 years. "Bank staff should remain vigilant when senior citizens approach them for transferring huge sums of money from their fixed deposit accounts. We have instructed banks to inform us about any suspicious transactions. Since the amount lost in each of these three cases exceeded Rs1 crore, the Chennai cybercrime police have registered cases and are investigating to identify the culprits."
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