A senior citizen reportedly lost ₹15 lakh in a fraudulent share trading scheme after he came across an advertisement on social media, police said.
Gopal Banerjee, a resident of SGIL Residenzza off Belgharia Expressway, came across a Facebook post about share trading last November and clicked on it, thinking he would gain advantages from the link.
“I clicked on a trading-related post and received an invite via a WhatsApp group. The admin asked me to apply for registration through a link. After the application was approved, they asked me to install a mobile app, which they claimed was an official trading platform of a reputed banking company,” Banerjee has reported to the police.
Hoping to get good returns from trading, Banerjee transferred ₹12,16,000 from one of his bank accounts in four installments to a bank account provided to him.
A few days later, he was again promoted to transfer another ₹3,81,000 to more bank accounts, which were shared with him.
In both cases, the banking companies whose shares he was trading demanded more money from him. His accounts were blocked after he failed to transfer the sum demanded.
“The complainant said the first company, whose shares he had invested in, demanded another ₹8.23 lakh, and the second company, where he had invested more than ₹3.8 lakh, was asking for ₹10 lakh more. He tried to verify the documents that the companies had given him and found that the certificates he was given were fake and that his money was gone,” said an officer of Airport police station where he filed a complaint on Friday.
No one was arrested till Sunday.
Senior police authorities stated that it is not advisable to click on advertisement links on social media.
Such platforms do not distinguish between real advertisements and those that are fraudulent.
If anyone comes across a suspicious post, link, or app, they must report it immediately to the police so that timely action can be taken.