Indian Businessman Trapped into an Online Trading Scam, Lossing over $590,000

In April, a 57-year-old Indian businessman in Dubai on a business trip, met a man named “Kapoor” who introduced himself as an employee of JP Morgan.

During their conversation, Kapoor introduced a Mumbai share trader who worked for a U.S. company, saying she has knowledge about investing in the stock market and could make good returns.

When he back to India, the victim received a call from the trader. She said she worked for a company that specialized in online currency trading and promised him huge returns.

Persuaded by the trader, the businessman decided to invest based on her advice and saw good returns in the early stages of his investment.

Later, the trader began to pressure him to invest more money and sent him a document describing various investment schemes.

The victim became suspicious and contacted one of the authorities mentioned in the document via e-mail. To his surprise, the authority replied that it had nothing to do with the investment and that the document was not released by it.

By the time the victim realized he had been scammed, he had already paid more than $590,000 for the so-called “investment”.

Indian police are investigating the identities of two suspects in the case.

Prakash W Rake, an official of India's cyber police station, said the victims of the scam were not few. “People are lured by attractive returns and often send money blindly, without knowing the person behind the scheme,” he said. “Once the money is transferred out of India, recovery becomes difficult. Raising awareness is the only solution in these cases.”