Cyber criminals misuse Union Minister’s name: Cheat senior citizen of Rs. 1.38 crore

Mysuru: Cyber criminals have cheated a senior citizen of city to the tune of Rs. 1,38,83,132 by misusing the name of a Union Minister in the advertisement and uploading the same on social media.
On Aug. 7, the 74-year-old senior citizen was browsing through Facebook pages when an advertisement in which the Union Minister tells people to invest in Quantum AI Trading popped up.
When the senior citizen clicked on the advertisement, a woman introducing herself as Monisha, provided information regarding trading and told the senior citizen to deposit Rs. 15,132.
After the senior citizen deposited the money and registered the name, a Zoom meeting link was sent to the phone of the senior citizen besides asking to invest Rs. 18,000, which the senior citizen transferred through Google Pay. On Aug. 18, an amount of Rs. 975 was deposited to the account of the senior citizen as profit.
When the senior citizen was again told to invest more money to get huge profit, the elderly citizen invested a total of Rs. 1,38,50,000 from Aug. 21 to Sept. 9. Later, an amount of Rs. 94,482 was deposited to the account of the senior citizen as profit.
When the cyber criminals once again told the senior citizen to invest more, the senior citizen’s daughter, realising that they had been cheated, lodged a complaint at city’s CEN Police Station on Oct. 3.