A 45-year-old software engineer became the latest victim of cybercrime in the city and lost ₹37.3 lakh after he was promised premium membership on a dating app.
The victim, a man from Kammanahalli, while browsing the net, came across an online dating app and tried to enrol as a member in December last year. An unidentified person claiming to be from the dating website called him and lured him to pay for the membership, and since then he started paying towards various fees from his account. He spent all his savings and even borrowed money from a friend to pay until April this year.
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He soon realised he had been duped, and when his friends started pestering him to repay the money, the victim approached the East division cybercrime police and filed a complaint. The police have obtained the account details of the transactions and efforts are on to track down the accused.
Fraudulent ‘friend’
In another similar incident, a 26-year-old private firm employee was trapped by his female social media “friend” who lured him into a private conversation, recorded it, and extorted ₹51,000 from him.
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When the demand for ransom increased, unable to bear the harassment, the victim approached the Whitefield cybercrime police and filed a complaint on Tuesday. In his complaint, the victim said that he became friends with the woman on Facebook in May and they shared their numbers. The duo soon began to chat. Without his knowledge, the woman recorded the chats and later started blackmailing him, threatening to upload the videos.
Fearing for his reputation, he transferred ₹51,000 into her account. The Whitefield police are now trying to track down the accused based on the details of where the money was transferred to. The Whitefield cybercrime police had unearthed a similar racket and arrested two persons from Rajasthan in April for blackmailing and extorting a 26-year-old IAS aspirant by trapping him online and recording his videos.