Caution: Fraudulent stock market trading schemes, advisory issued by Jt CP Ranganath

Hyderabad: Joint Commissioner of Police (Crimes and SIT) AV Ranganath has said that there has been a noticeable increase in cybercrimes recently using phoney stock market trading programs and trading tips that resulted in the victims losing enormous sums of money.

Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, Ranganath on Wednesday said that fraudsters approach victims through various online social media platforms like Telegram, Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook by advertisements regarding free stock market tips and advice. In order to acquire the victim's trust, the scammers initially send money to the victim's bank account by posting fictitious screenshots of the profits made by other clients. Furthermore, they demand that the victims become members of the Premium or VIP group, claiming to share stock market insights and guidance that would enable them to benefit from higher gains, he said.

Elaborating further, the Joint Commissioner said that the victim will see fake gains on the website's dashboard, but when they attempt to withdraw them, the withdrawal option is blocked. The scammers then demand payment to unblock the account, claiming various taxes and penalties in the process. Advocates, chartered accountants, and other working professionals are most frequently taken in by scammers. An Advocate was duped into investing Rs. 85 lakhs on a phoney trading website after seeing an advertisement on Facebook, he said.

Ranganath said that another victim who is an IT employee was added to a Whatsapp group by the fraudsters. Believing the conversations and the profits shown in that group, he invested and lost an amount of Rs 55 lakh. Another victim who is a CA by profession was trapped by the fraudsters with a fake trading website and lured an amount of Rs.91 lakh from him, he added.

Precautions to be Taken:

• Never trade the stocks in any unknown applications other than registered with SEBI.
• Do not transfer the money to the individual bank accounts as the stock broker facilitates the transfer of the money through their application only.
• Do not believe in dubious returns offered by the fraudsters.
• Make sure of the applications while downloading from Google Play store or their own websites.
• Never share your demat account credentials with unknown persons.
• Don’t believe the fake conversations in unknown groups and blindly invest your hard earned money.