Akshaye Khanna, Annu Kapoor to Swara Bhasker: How online frauds tricked these Bollywood celebrities out of lakhs

According to The Indian Express, in 2013, actor Akshaye Khanna fell victim to a fraudulent scheme orchestrated by a married couple, Satyabrata and Shona Chakrabarti, who deceived him out of Rs. 50 lakh. They met through mutual acquaintances at a social gathering, where the duo persuaded Khanna to invest in what they described as a thriving commodity trading venture that promised to double his investment within a year. It was only after some time that he realized he had been misled and decided to pursue legal action against them.

According to The Indian Express, actor Annu Kapoor was a victim in 2022 of an impostor pretending to be a bank employee, who convinced Kapoor to share his details under the guise of fulfilling a KYC profile update from the government. As a result, Kapoor lost Rs. 4.36 lakh. Fortunately, the Oshiwara police were able to act quickly. They approached the banks involved to freeze the money moved by the suspect, and were able to return Rs. 3.08 lakh to Kapoor.

A report on Mid-day.com states that actress Swara Bhasker also became a victim in one terrifying incident at the ATM. While attempting to use an ATM that seemed slow and possibly damaged, two people waiting in line advised her not to use that ATM. A few minutes afterwards, Swara received a text message indicating that money was removed from the account that she had not authorized. Swara spent the entire night making a complaint to the cybercrime department and then her bank, and was accepted later that she was indeed a victim of ATM fraud.

Similarly, in 2016 actress Nargis Fakhri became the target of an elaborate online credit card scam that cost her nearly ₹6 lakh. As per India Today, this fraud came to light when her bank alerted her about 14 unauthorized transactions totaling $9,062 occurring within just one hour. Authorities later found that criminals had cloned her credit card information and stolen the funds.

As stated by Hindustan Times, actor Karan Singh Grover fell for an online lottery scam, amounting to a loss of Rs. 5.6 lakh. He received an email about winning a large sum of money, and they requested a processing fee to receive the money. He sent the money but never received the funds he was promised. When he contacted the "lottery" officials, they vanished.

According to TOI, actress Shweta Menon was the victim of a phishing scam. She received an email asking her to update her PAN and KYC details. When she clicked the link, scammers gained access to her bank account. She lost Rs. 57,636. Multiple other people reported falling victim to the same link at the same time.