It all began with a innocuous message over WhatsApp that proved costly for him. He started losing huge amount to the crooks even as Surat cybercrime police booked 12 unknown persons for duping Bokde.
Bokde runs a travel agency from his home in Pal area and on August 3, he received a message from a woman named Aishwarya. She identified herself from Bloomberg India Ltd and offered Bokde Google map and YouTube subscription tasks to earn more money while sitting at home.
After he agreed, a telegram channel link was sent to him for the tasks. During registration on the said link, he was asked to give account details as he had given bank details of his wife. Initially, the crooks deposited Rs 150 and Rs 750 for different online YouTube subscription tasks in his bank account to win his confidence.
After that, Bokde was taken to premium paid task for which he was asked to deposit money. He was told that he would earn more over bitcoin tasks. He was sent one more link for registration and told to transfer money. Bokde kept on transferring money to the tune of Rs 7.88 lakh, but could withdraw only Rs 3,850 in different transactions.
During August 3 to 6, he transferred Rs 2,000, Rs 71,400, Rs 1,39,200, Rs 1,76,500, Rs 1,50,000, Rs 50,000, Rs 1,99,000 and Rs 356 in different bank accounts as directed by the crooks. The money was transferred to ICICI, PNB, SBI bank accounts.
After the crooks still asked for more money, he called the cyber helpline on 1930 and registered a complaint.
Following that complaint, a formal FIR was registered with cybercrime police against 12 persons on November 20.
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