An Indian civil contractor lost around $200,000 after falling for a romance crypto scam

An Indian man lost INR 1.67 crore, equivalent to around $200,000, after a woman scammed him through WhatsApp.

The civil contractor named Ramesh connected with the scammer, who was posing as a potential bride, through a matrimonial website. The victim started having conversations with the scammer named Priyanka through WhatsApp beginning April 11. 

Scammer claimed to work for a trading company

The scammer claimed to be working in a cryptocurrency trading company based in Singapore. She convinced the victim to invest through the trading app and promised him high returns. The victim fell for the scam and started depositing large sums of money into the fake app.

Initially, the victim transferred an investment of INR 50,000 (equivalent to $583) and made a profit of INR 8,300, which is around $100. When the victim saw that he was making profit, he continued transferring bigger amounts of money through bank transfers and UPI payments.

The victim said, “After the first transfer, the app showed an instant profit of Rs 8,300. Lured by the returns, I continued to ‘invest’ more money into the platform through multiple bank transfers and UPI payments.”

A Unified Payments Interface or UPI is a real-time payment system developed by India’s National Payments Corporation (NPCI) that lets people instantly transfer money between bank accounts via a mobile app.

The victim made multiple deposits totaling INR 1.67 crore (equivalent to around $200,000) to the fake crypto investment app between April and June. However, when the victim tried to cash out his earnings, the fake app locked his wallet, preventing any withdrawal attempts. 

The scammer then pressured the victim to transfer INR 25 lakh (equivalent to around $29,175) as an additional charge to release the funds. Ramesh refused to make any additional payments, and the victim blocked him on WhatsApp and deactivated the phone number. 

After becoming aware of the fraud, the victim approached the Cyberabad Police to report the incident. 

A case was registered for cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, cheating by personation, forgery for the purpose of cheating, forgery of valuable security or wills, and using forged documents or electronic records as genuine—all committed with a common intention—along with electronic-media impersonation under the IT Act.

The authorities are now investigating multiple bank accounts along with five mobile numbers connected to the scam.

The Indian police are working to unmask the scammers and have issued an alert that social platforms are becoming a favorite hunting ground for cyber criminals targeting unsuspecting people.

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