Man loses over Rs 48 lakh in cyber fraud; cops succeed in tracking and freezing Rs 38 lakh

Palghar, Jul 9 (PTI) Police in Maharashtra's Palghar district have tracked and frozen Rs 38 lakh, out of the total amount of more than Rs 48 lakh that retired bank employee had lost in a cyber fraud, a senior police official said on Thursday. Palghar Superintendent of Police (SP) Yatish Deshmukh said the 70-year-old victim, a resident of Dahanu taluka, had approached the police after he realised tht he had been duped through a fraudulent social media video advertisement promoting a fake "Quantum AI Platform". "In May this year, the complainant came across a video that promoted an investment portal. The advertisement deceptively claimed that users could earn massive daily returns of USD 70,000 to 90,000 after an initial entry fee of Rs 21,000," he said. After the victim filled an online form, scammers contacted him via WhatsApp and induced him to transfer money across various processing stages. To build initial trust, the fraudsters allowed him to successfully withdraw a minor profit of USD 7 via a fake portal. Enticed by this, the senior citizen ended up transferring a staggering Rs 48.53 lakh across multiple accounts, he said. "When the victim approached the police, our teams immediately coordinated with the Palghar Cyber Police Station. Cyber personnel swiftly registered a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal and established rapid communication with the nodal officers of the concerned banks to freeze the suspicious transaction channels," Deshmukh said. Legal procedures are currently underway to return the frozen Rs 38.21 lakh to the complainant via court orders. A formal case was registered on July 8 at the Gholwad police station under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology (IT) Act. PTI COR NP