1,000 women in NCR duped this year in ‘work from home’ frauds

The Gurugram Police’s cyber crime team arrested four fraudsters on Tuesday night who duped at least 1,000 women in the National Capital Region in the past five months of at least ₹80 crore under various guises such as investing money in an app and getting good returns or earning cash by rating movies online.

Police officers associated with the case said they had recovered ₹1 lakh from the suspects.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cyber) Priyanshu Diwan said that the suspects tricked homemakers by telling them they could earn money by working from home and asking them to invest money in an app. “At first, women only invested a small amount of money. But as their returns kept increasing, they started investing more money to the tune of lakhs. When the women asked for their money back, the suspects either asked for more money or threatened to leak their phone numbers online,” he said. The victims thought if their numbers were leaked, other fraudsters would harass them or their numbers would be shared on porn sites.

Investigators said that the suspects created various groups on the Telegram app, where many men and women praised the suspects and said they earned lakhs. This gave the impression to the victims that the fraudsters were not scamming them and if other people were making money, so could they.

A few gangs work similarly but are based in different places, such as Delhi, said ACP Diwan.

Investigators said they cracked down on the gang after a 30-year-old woman who lived in DLF Phase 3 told police in February that she had been scammed out of ₹2.30 lakh between December and February. The woman said her friend had asked her to invest money in an app and join an 800-member WhatsApp group.

The complainant, Palakk Srivastava, said that after investing money at various stages, she requested a withdrawal on December 15 and received nothing. “The WhatsApp group had nearly 800 members, of whom only one person, a woman, was our point of contact with the people who represented the app. All group members were asking for their money back, and the group administrator was ignoring everyone and asking people to invest more so that they could get their money,” she said.

On March 3, a case was filed at the cybercrime west police station under sections 419 (cheating by impersonation) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code. Police said that on Tuesday night, they conducted a raid and caught the suspects, who were identified as Tushar Kohli, 24, Vinod Kumar Bhasin, 35, Ram Kumar Raman, whose age could not be confirmed, and Sahlesh Kumar, 25.

According to police, nearly 1,000 women, of whom 800 are homemakers, have been scammed by the same gang, and investigators have screenshots of the apps and various transactions made to them.

Diwan said that as they investigated the case, they found many people across the city who the suspects had tricked.

“We also found out that the suspects were part of the same gang that used to scam people by offering them loans through Chinese apps and then not paying them back. The gang only goes after women. They send them messages asking them to help movie companies get more people to click on their links. For each click, they pay the women ₹150 to ₹300. They also paid ₹500 for each review and added them to a Telegram group with at least 14 members, where they shared their reviews and screenshots of their payments for registration,” he said.

Police said that the victims started investing to stay in the group, but when they asked for their money back after putting up a lot of money, the gang members exited the Telegram group.

ACP Diwan said the Telegram app makes it easier to avoid police scrutiny. “ Telegram is a platform where it’s easy to delete chats and groups in seconds, making it hard for us to investigate. The suspects use some apps to make temporary phone numbers that make people think they are international but are local numbers. Scammers are smart and devise ways to trick people using mobile platforms,” he said.

The police said that gangs use informal money brokers such as the hawala system and cryptocurrency to send money to other countries. Diwan said, “We are following the money and will find the end-user and mastermind soon.”

Police on Wednesday registered another case against unidentified suspects for allegedly duping a 36-year-old woman of over ₹76 lakh by telling her she could make money doing “work from home”. The woman, who works for a multinational corporation, received an email inviting her to review and rate popular movies on their websites.

Divya, who goes by her first name and lives in the New Colony neighbourhood of Gurugram, said she was tricked by an online app called Bitmaxfilm.com. On February 25, she received a Telegram message from a woman offering her a part-time job. After two days, another woman messaged her, explaining that this is a part-time job offer and that she would be asked to rate famous movies. She instructed her to register on the Bitmaxfilm.com platform and then begin rating.

“The woman who called me said I had to do at least one set daily. There were 28 movies to rate in each set. To start rating, ₹10,500 must be added to the account, and I can get my money back when the set is done. The merchant’s account number and the amount to be deposited are then given by customer service. Customer service confirms it as soon as you put money in, and the platform shows that you put it in. Then, on February 27, I began making the set. As I was rating the tickets on the platform, I got a message that I had won a premium ticket and would have to pay the negative balance for it,” she said.

The woman said that the suspects told her that if she didn’t pay, her bank account would go into the red and freeze. “I deposited ₹29,500, then ₹82,541, and on March 11 I deposited ₹2.28 lakh. Then, they asked me to finish 30 tickets because the level had gone up. Then it showed again that it was short ₹5,48,658. So again, I was asked to deposit ₹9,59,357 to finish the last ticket. But later, I was told I was at level 8 and needed to finish 35 tickets. After that, they told me I had to deposit ₹21,23,765 to get all the money I had put down, but I had already deposited ₹76,84,00, so I was suspicious and went to the police,” she said.

After her complaint, a first information report was filed at the cybercrime (west) police station against unidentified fraudsters under section 420 (cheating) and 66-D of the IT Act. The police have begun an investigation and have identified several gangs that could be involved in the scam.