Cyber crimes continue to flourish on online platforms wherein fraudsters offer unbelievably high returns on investments to dupe gullible people.
Premchand Pal, a business from Karanjia in Mayurbhanj district, was robbed of his hard-earned money by investing in a firm, Netflix Follow, on the online platform. Many others also fell prey to the fraudulent investment scheme and lost their money.
According to sources, the investors deposited money ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 50,000 and also got returns for some initial months. However, they stopped getting interest on their investment from October 14 and also found the website of the firm defunct. After realising that they had been duped, the investors knocked on doors of the Crime Branch.
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Sanjulata Pal, one of the investors, said, “We received money for some time but later when we clicked on the withdrawal link, the system got hanged. We received message that we will be getting the money after a week. However, the website did not work thereafter.”
Same is the case with Abhinas Satyaprakash of Mayurbhanj, who had received a link from ‘Cloud Asset Management’ and started investing money after downloading the link. As per the procedures of the investment scheme, he was asked to invest Rs 1,000 and supposed to get Rs 1,900 in just 10 days. Lured by the promises of hefty returns, Satyaprakash invested Rs 6 lakh but lost all the money. He said thousands others were also defrauded by the scheme.
“Around 6,000 to 7,000 people have invested in the scheme to the tune of Rs 60 crore. The site did not open from October 14. When we clicked on the link, the error message we received read ‘IP address not found’. We approached the Crime Branch yesterday and the cops have assured to help us” said Satyaprakash.
The NCRB also provided a grim report regarding the rising cyber crime. The report said cyber crimes increased by 30 per cent in 2020 compared to the figures in the previous year. Last year, the elusive looters executed as many as 1931 crimes in the State.
Cyber expert Debasish Das said, “We should give up the greed of becoming Lakhpati overnight. Otherwise, we will continue to get such dubious links on our phone and get cheated.”