THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Imagine getting paid for reading a book. It would have been the greatest offer for bibliophiles, and a passive source of income for those who aren’t.
Unfortunately, it was all a scam, as hundreds of people in the state realised after collectively losing over Rs 1 crore.
At least 106 people recently submitted a mass petition to the Thiruvananthapuram Rural cyber police station, alleging that they together lost Rs 1.25 crore to the online scam. While cyber cell officials said similar scams were taking place in different parts of the state, particularly in Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam, the Vithura police, who had initially received a complaint, said they suspect a UK-based link to the fraud.
According to police officials, the pattern of the scam in Vithura is very similar to other task-based scams, where one rates and reviews hotels, except for a change in the app’s name, in this case the NTL App.
On how the scam works, an official said a link to download the app is sent via WhatsApp to a prominent person in a locality, someone with a public connect who will attract more people to the ‘scheme’. There are multiple levels of entry, each with a varying cost, starting from Rs 1,800 and going up to lakhs. After they join, the members are given the task of reading e-books everyday. Upon completion, they earn Rs 25. The person who brought them in also earns a commission for every book read. “The more members one adds, the higher the commission.”
Now comes the catch. The financial transaction is shown only in the app and the money earned can be withdrawn only on Wednesday. Some victims said they received money initially. This stopped eventually. Later, when the app stopped responding, they understood that they had been scammed and approached the police.
“There are people who invested lakhs into this scheme. From what we learnt, the scamsters used the details of a US company to cheat us,” a victim told TNIE. The complainants have accused Sanofar, a Tholicode native, as the key suspect. He reportedly convinced them to join the scheme.
However, Sanofar is only the tip of the iceberg, said Vithura SHO Vaisakh D. “We suspect the role of some operations centred around the UK. We have filed an FIR and handed over details to the cyber cell.”
Reiterating that they have issued clear warnings about such scams, cyber cell officials said similar scams are targeting people across the state.
“Most of the cases have been reported from Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam. A few cases were reported in other districts, including Malappuram and Kozhikode,” said an official with the Joint Cyber Crime Coordination Centre.
