Gujarat couple falls prey to cyber fraud, lose over ₹1 crore: Report
The couple was enticed by the promise of easy money by working from home, where their job would be to watch movies and rate them.
A couple from Gujarat's Jamnagar fell prey to a cyber scam and lost a staggering sum of Rs. 1.12 crore, according to a Times of India report. The couple was lured with the promise of earning easy money by working from home where their job would be to watch movies and provide ratings for each one.
They were introduced to the scheme through a Telegram group. The incident has been reported to the district's cyber crime police station.
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“You can earn by sitting at home in your comfort, only you have to do is to give ratings to the movies,” is the message the couple received on Telegram, which also promised daily earnings ranging from Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 5,000.
Upon receiving the invitation, the couple was instructed to create an account on a fake website and generate a password. They were then directed to join a Telegram group to start the rating process. To ensure that they had indeed watched the movies before rating them, the couple was asked to purchase tickets first.
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In their first attempt, they were asked to purchase tickets for up to 28 movies which included Hollywood, Bollywood, and South Indian Hindi dubbed films. After watching each movie, the couple had to rate them to earn commissions with the note that the commission varied based on the language.
According to the police, the couple was well-educated and the wife had a good command of the English language. The fraudsters reportedly gained the couple's trust by sending a Rs. 10,000 coupon, followed by a deposit of Rs. 99,000 into the wife's account a few days later.
The couple began rating movies, and their ticket purchases amounted to Rs. 5 lakh. However, when the woman attempted to withdraw the earnings, she was asked to purchase more tickets to earn more. This led to her getting trapped in a vicious cycle of investing more to try to get her own money back.
Eventually, the woman invested a total of Rs. 40 lakh in buying tickets and attempted to withdraw her earnings. However, the cyber crooks demanded a surcharge be paid in advance before allowing the withdrawal of the large sum of money. The couple ended up paying a total of Rs. 70 lakhs.
The situation took a turn for the worse when the fraudsters began blackmailing the woman, threatening to register a money laundering case against her if she attempted to withdraw the large sum of money. To avoid the alleged charges, they pressured her into investing the entire amount in another scheme.
The couple ended up depositing a total of Rs. 1.12 crore before realizing that they had been duped. The Times of India reported that the police have arrested a suspect from Surat after tracing bank transactions. However, the authorities are still investigating to find the mastermind behind the elaborate scam.