Cyber police busts fake online trading racket

Srinagar: The Cyber Police on Friday claimed to have busted a fake online trading racket and helped save huge money of two people who were duped by the fraudsters.
A spokesman of the cyber police said that they received a complaint from a senior citizen of Srinagar City, stating therein that an amount of ₹11lacs has been fraudulently withdrawn from his bank account regarding which he has no knowledge.
Accordingly, Cyber Police Kashmir started investigation promptly into the matter.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the said ₹11lacs were transferred into the bank account of complainant’s nephew. Accordingly, after verifying the facts from the complainant’s nephew, he disclosed that he came in touch with scammers over social media sites and they motivated him to invest in online trading to receive hefty returns and direct credit to his bank account.
He further disclosed that apart from the said amount of ₹11lacs, he has also withdrawn an amount of ₹19lacs from his father’s bank account and invested the same in online trading and investment resulting in huge financial loss of ₹30lacs.
The Cyber team coordinated with the Bank authorities to ascertain the details of these transactions, where from it was revealed that the said hefty amount has been transferred through Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and Internet Banking into different online payment gateways. The matter was further taken up with the gateway authorities to ascertain the transaction details, the spokesman said.
Acting swiftly, the investigation team was successful in tracing all the transactions in different online payment gateways which were being used to exchange into foreign currency and whole amount of ₹30lacs was blocked and further refunded back to complainants’ bank accounts, the spokesman added.
Pertinently, Cyber Police Station Kashmir Zone also saved an amount of ₹7lacs during the month of January-2022.
On the directions of IGP Kashmir Zone, various awareness campaigns and programmes have also been initiated by the Cyber Police Kashmir, wherein general public is made aware about various contemporary online frauds and scams etc, the spokesman added.