Job scam: Woman loses Rs 66 L to UP man
The woman had received a message on WhatsApp promising an online part-time job related to Youtube promotion. According to the complainant, she lost a tune of Rs 66.2 lakh to the fraudsters.
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CHENNAI: A 20-year-old from Uttar Pradesh has been arrested by the City Police’s Central Crime Branch (CCB) for allegedly cheating a city woman of several lakhs by luring her into an online part-time job scam.
The woman had received a message on WhatsApp promising an online part-time job related to Youtube promotion. According to the complainant, she lost a tune of Rs 66.2 lakh to the fraudsters.
The Cyber Crime team obtained the KYC (Know your customer) details of suspect bank account and traced the phone numbers linked to the accounts. Police found that the account belonged to one Manish Kumar, but was operated by his son, Ridham Chawla (20) of Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh. A special team of city police coordinated with Rae Bareli police and secured the accused. Investigations revealed that he was part of the online part-time job scam racket and traded Rs 1.6 crore he usurped from public in Crypto Currency.
He was produced before a magistrate in Chennai on Tuesday and sent for judicial remand. Police have frozen Rs 19 lakh in bank accounts.
In Online part time job scam, victims are lured by WhatsApp and telegram messages where they are offered jobs such as liking, subscribing to YouTube videos, writing google reviews, hotel and travel reviews, Crypto trading / investment in fake websites created by the fraudsters.
“Initially the victims receive money ranging from Rs.150 to Rs 1,000/- for completion of tasks. This motivates them to get involved more. Then they are slowly moved to a bigger telegram group with more than 50 participants. There, the victims are asked to pay subscription for getting tasks which will pay them more,” an official said.
The fraudsters then post fake screenshots of people earning more money and then give time bound task and make the victims fail in such tasks. Using this, the fraudsters demand for penalty payment by freezing the amount earned. Believing the same the victims tend to invest more money by borrowing loans from bank, friends, pledging jewellery, police said.
