Kanpur: Cyber Fraudsters Cheat Two Doctors, Pathology Manager of ₹5 Crore Through Fake Trading App

Kanpur — Cyber criminals have cheated two doctors and a pathology manager of nearly ₹5 crore by luring them with promises of high returns from the share market. The fraud was carried out using a fake trading app that appeared to belong to a reputed company. A complaint has been filed with the Cyber Crime police.

According to one of the victims, a doctor, he received a call on September 3 from someone claiming to be a SEBI official. The caller offered shares and IPOs at 10–15% lower rates. Later, he was added to a WhatsApp group named “Lunch Club H49”, where he regularly received tips related to stock investments.

The group members then sent him a link to download the Ventura Trading App. Over the next one and a half months, the doctor invested around ₹3.3 crore through this app. On November 11, he was told that the app operator, R. Amarnath, had been arrested for insider trading and fined ₹100 crore. He was also informed that the app had been penalized 20%, due to which all accounts had been frozen. Only then did he realize he had been cheated, losing more than ₹2 crore.

The fraud did not stop at him. A pathology technical manager associated with the doctors was also duped of ₹1.37 crore since October. Another doctor from Tilak Nagar fell into the same trap and lost nearly ₹1 crore.

Police and bank officials are now retrieving details of the transactions to trace the money trail. Investigations have revealed that when large withdrawals were being made, bank authorities had warned the victims about overspending. However, the victims continued to invest, hoping for high profits, and eventually fell prey to the scheme.

The Cyber Crime unit has started a probe and advised citizens to avoid investing through unknown apps and links, especially those shared on WhatsApp groups or through unsolicited calls.