14-year-old falls prey to cyptocurrency scam, ₹1.11 lakh of father’s money
Navi Mumbai: A 14-year-old boy from Kamothe, who used to help his father with online banking, fell prey to the lure of cryptocurrency and ended up losing ₹1
Navi Mumbai: A 14-year-old boy from Kamothe, who used to help his father with online banking, fell prey to the lure of cryptocurrency and ended up losing ₹1.11 lakh to a fraudster on Instagram. It was all the money his father had saved in his account.
To the 45-year-old father, who works as a clerk at Raigad collector office, it came as a shock when he found that he had no balance in his bank account while trying to pay the installment of his insurance policy.
Since his son, a student of class IX, used to help him with online banking, he asked him about the money and learnt that he had invested it in cryptocurrency after someone had promised him high returns on Instagram. The father-son duo realised that it was a fraud only when they asked for the money back and the conman blocked them on social media.
The father then approached Kamothe police station and registered a case against the unidentified person for cheating, under the sections of the IPC and IT Act.
On March 8, while surfing Instagram, the boy was approached by an account handle named CRYPTO_VARUN claiming that he could help the boy earn high returns through cryptocurrency. The account holder claimed to be an event manager with 39,000 followers and assured him of good returns.
From March 8 to March 15, the boy made UPI transfers to the id, the conman shared. When the father learnt that there was no money left in his account, he went to the bank to enquire and learnt that there were multiple UPI transactions made from his account. When he asked his son about it, the boy confessed that he had invested the money in cryptocurrency in the hope of high returns.
“After I learnt that my son had made the transactions, we contacted the person again through Instagram and told him we wanted to withdraw the investment but the person blocked us,” said the father.
“I am not adept at online banking and that’s why I take my son’s help when it comes to making transactions. That’s how he knows my passwords and other details. Surprisingly, I did not receive any message while these transactions were being made,” said the father.
“The police said they are investigating and I hope to get back my hard-earned money,” he added.