In a bizarre cybercrime case, a Bengaluru resident has fallen prey to an online trading scam. He lost ₹1.12 crore after interacting online with a woman he came across on the Happn dating app. In a complaint filed by the victim with the CEN police, his interaction with the scammer started on June 28 when he accepted a friend request from a person named “Leena Jose.”
Soon, the conversation switched to Telegram, and the woman persuaded him to invest in Forex trading on Admiral Market. She promised him this was an authentic trading platform and asked him to download an app called Wavegptexa.
On July 3, based on the girl’s advice, he invested ₹50,000 as the initial amount. He was then lured by promises of huge returns and transferred ₹10 lakh to various bank accounts provided by the scammer. Initially, his Wavegptexa account showed a huge profit of ₹80 lakh.
However, when he tried to withdraw the amount, he was informed that a 30 percent tax on the total amount must be paid before any withdrawal. He believed the procedure to be valid and hence transferred ₹19.26 lakh into various accounts.
Later, as the fraudulent transaction began, he was told that more payments would be made toward certain necessary fees, including a 10 percent bank transaction fee toward changing the earnings from dollar form into Indian rupees. This time, he transferred ₹7.36 lakh, thinking these fees had to be paid.
Despite the payments, when he tried to withdraw ₹50 lakh, they started claiming that something had triggered a “risk control” and that he needed to pay an additional 50 percent of the total amount. Under compulsion, he transferred ₹ 26.84 lakh.
The fraud continued, and the conmen kept insisting that he needed to become a “VIP client” to get the money out and that, for that, he needed to improve his credit score on the platform. By the time he figured he had been conned, he had lost ₹1.12 crore, having made the last transfer on September 23.
