Alappuzha doctor loses over Rs 7 cr in online fraud, 3 held

Alappuzha: A doctor in Cherthala lost a whopping Rs 7.65 crore after he fell prey to an interstate racket 'specialising' in fake share trading. Based on his complaint, police initiated a probe and arrested Abdul Sanath, Praveen aka Kannan and Mohammed Anus. The three accused are part of a large racket, police said.

According to the police, fraudsters lured the doctor into their scheme by sending him a message, purportedly from two 'investment firms'. Once the victim responded and showed interest, the second part of the scheme was put into motion. ''The fraudsters began calling the victim posing as authorities from the said firms. They took classes for him detailing how to make the investments and how it would bring huge profits. They cleared all his doubts and convinced him that the deal was authentic,'' a police official said.

Once the fraudsters earned his trust, he was asked to deposit investment money into five different accounts. Periodically, the doctor used to receive messages that a certain amount of money had been credited to his account as profit from the investments he made.

''The complainant never doubted these messages nor did he check the veracity of these messages. That was a mistake. Instead, he trusted them to be true and made more such ‘investments.’ The final transaction he made was for Rs 50 lakh before he eventually realised that he had been duped,'' the official said. The transactions were done to five accounts, two of which - Petro Logistics and Modern - were traced to Kozhikode.

''We utilised the data from the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP). We identified the five different accounts to which he transferred money. Two of them were registered in the name of two women in Kozhikode. Our investigation revealed that one of the women's son-in-law and two of his friends were operating these accounts,'' the official said.

The other accounts were traced to Gujarat and other parts of north India. The police have recovered Rs 35 lakh of the Rs 50 lakh from the arrested. ''The arrested will be produced before the court along with the retrieved money. State police will take up the case for further inquiry and track down the other members involved in the racket,'' the official said.

Last year, several people lost over Rs 35 crore in online fraud in Alappuzha alone. The police also arrested 40 people in the 244 cases registered in the district.