Hyderabad: The Cyberabad Cybercrime police detected nine cases between April 15 and April 24, resulting in 14 arrests, a majority linked to trading fraud.
One of the major cases detected by the police involves a Rs 1.88 crore trading fraud operated through Instagram advertisements, emails, and WhatsApp, where fraudsters posing as crypto trading experts used a fake AI-based trading platform ‘Naka Solutions’ to cheat a Hyderabad resident.
According to the police, the victim had come across an Instagram advertisement for an AI-based crypto trading platform, ‘Naka Solutions’, after which he was contacted by fraudsters through phone and email, asking him to create an account on a fake trading application through an unverified link.
Then, the victim was asked to make small investments and was even allowed to make a nominal withdrawal to build confidence. They showed fake profits, manipulated credits in the trading dashboard and added them to group chats to influence further investments.
The victim was induced to deposit larger amounts and was shown inflated profits to encourage higher investment.
However, when the victim tried to withdraw the money, fraudsters demanded multiple fake charges like taxes, conversion fee, transaction fee, etc. Despite the victim complying with all the payments, the withdrawal was never processed, resulting in major financial losses.
One of the accused in the case, Mohd Abdul Rehman, was arrested in Telangana. He allegedly created bank accounts, converted the funds into cryptocurrency, and transferred them to cyber fraudsters in return for a commission.
In another case, fraudsters impersonated reputed firms like ‘5 Paisa Capital’ and duped the victim of Rs 64.86 lakh using fake WhatsApp advisory groups.
Three people from Andhra Pradesh, identified as Shaik Irfan, Shaik Nizamuddin and Velaga Vamshi Krishna, were arrested for routing money to the fraudsters.
In these 10 days, Cyberabad Cybercrime police registered six cases related to trading fraud, resulting in 11 arrests. The other three cases, related to digital arrest fraud, advertisement fraud, and online relationship fraud, resulted in one arrest each.
Cybercrime police also issued refunds worth Rs 1,14,90,586 to the victims.
Police have asked the public to be cautious of investment offers on social media and report any cases of cyber fraud to the official portal or through the helpline 1930.
