Dentist duped of ₹1.36 crore after falling for investment fraud

Gurugram: A city-based dentist was allegedly cheated of ₹1.36 crore after he fell for an investment fraud, police said on Thursday.

Investigators said that the victim, a resident of Kendriya Vihar in Sector-56, had seen an advertisement on a social media platform on January 4 following which he had contacted the suspects via the phone number provided.

According to the police, the dentist was lured to invest in stock markets and specifically in initial public offerings of some firms for good returns.

Investigators said that the suspects told him to join their group on Telegram and simultaneously also got an application downloaded on his mobile phone for tracking his investments and the return he was getting on them.

A senior police officer said that the suspects initially made him deposit ₹50000 in their bank account which started getting reflected in the app and after a couple of days, a hefty profit also started showing on the app.

“However, it was all fake and actually none of the money invested by the dentist was being invested. The victim kept depositing money continuously and was finally shown that he had earned an overall profit of about ₹3.19 crore,” he said.

The officer said that the problem began when the dentist tried to withdraw his entire investment along with the profit incurred but he could not do it.

“He was made to deposit more money in the name of service charges, GST, security money etc. It continued for a few days after which he finally realised that he had fallen prey to an investment fraud. He tried to contact the suspects, but all the contact numbers were found switched off and finally he approached the police for help,” the officer said.

Priyanshu Dewan, assistant commissioner of police (cybercrime), said that all the banks in which the money had been transferred, were served notices to freeze the transactions and put the amount on hold. “Investigation has begun, and the suspects will be traced soon,” Dewan added.

Based on the dentist’s complaint, an FIR was registered against unidentified suspects under Section 420 (cheating) at the Cybercrime police station (east) on Tuesday.