A 23-year-old Software engineer of Ahmedabad filed a complaint with Ranip police alleging that an unknown person cheated him of Rs 1.64 lakh using the promise of lucrative returns from investments in an e-commerce website.
Mihir Prajapati, a resident of Sangita Society in Ranip, said he is a software engineer working for a private company. On April 22, when Prajapati was watching reels on Instagram, he found an investment offer promising to pay back double in a short period after fulfilling certain tasks.
Prajapati called the number provided and sent a WhatsApp message. An unknown person responded to him and sent him details of the investment plan.
The person told Prajapati on WhatsApp that he would have to like products on the Amazon store to raise their ranking on the internet. Prajapati was also told that the more he invested in the task completion scheme, the greater his returns would be.
Convinced, Prajapati first deposited Rs 200 to register on a Telegram group and began completing tasks to submit reviews on various products.
Prajapati kept paying money to get greater returns and ended up sending Rs 1.64 lakh to various UPI IDs provided on the Telegram group. One fine day he found that the Telegram group did not exist anymore.
Ranip police filed a complaint for cheating under the Indian Penal Code and offences under the Information Technology Act.