A 56-year-old resident of Baguiati who met a woman through a dating app was duped out of ₹64.6 lakh after the woman convinced him to invest in stock trading with the promise of high returns.

Police said the man, a resident of a housing complex at Deshbandhunagar in Baguiati, told them that he had met the woman in August.

“After a few days of chatting, she apparently approached him to invest money in an online trading business. At first, the complainant refused to invest, but she continued to insist that he put his money in stock trading with promises of lucrative returns,” said an officer of Bidhannagar police.

With the motive to lure the complainant, the woman started sharing some screenshots of her trading business with him that showed the money she invested and the profit she earned.

The man finally agreed and started investing money. Initially, he invested ₹40,000 and got a profit of ₹6,000. He ended up investing ₹64,60,560 from two of his bank accounts.

“According to the complainant, he never received any returns after that day. When he asked her to share the status of the profit earned from his investments, she kept delaying. When he wanted to withdraw the invested amount, she told him that withdrawing the money before maturity would mean financial loss,” said an officer of Bidhannagar city police.

However, when the complainant insisted on withdrawing the money, the woman allegedly demanded more money to liquidate his investments before the scheduled time of maturity.

Subsequently, she stopped responding to his messages. That is when the complainant realised that he had been cheated.

The police started a case on Saturday. No one had been arrested till Sunday evening.

A senior officer said it was advisable not to interact with strangers on social media or apps where there is no means to verify their credentials.