COIMBATORE: A 40-year-old woman lost Rs 19.02 lakh after she accessed a phishing weblink. According to police, the victim, a resident of Maniyakaranpalayam near Ganapathy, found a WhatsApp number from a website while searching for an investment scheme in June 2022. When she contacted the number, the person informed her that money would be invested in a leading e-commerce firm and assured of lucrative returns.
After that, she was directed to install a mobile application. She was asked to invest the money in the application by entering her banking credentials. Believing this, she started to invest in one of the plans in August 2022. She gradually increased the investments as she got good returns. Though the profit got updated in the dashboard of the application, she could not withdraw it. Meanwhile, the scammer stopped responding to her, said the police.
"She invested Rs 19.02 lakh till February 13 from June 2022. Besides, the application shows she had earned more than Rs 10 lakh. But, she was not able to withdraw the money from the application. She made around 120 transactions with the scammers, believing them as the representatives of the e-commerce firm. After sensing that it was a scam, she lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police on Thursday. Based on her complaint, a case has been booked under sections 420 of IPC and 66D of the Information Technology Act. We have sent letters to three private banks that hold accounts which received the amount from the victim, to freeze them," said a senior police officer.