A high school dropout from Karnataka had teamed up with three others from Gujarat and Maharashtra to set up an online forex trade racket, duping about 120 people of about ₹5 crore.

The cyber sleuths busted a multi-state scam last week, exposing an online dragnet that lured people into a ‘profitable’ foreign exchange trade. The group ‘promised’ people to double or treble profits on the amount invested, in a few days. According to Srinivas, Cyberabad Crimes Assistant Commissioner of Police, they would send bulk messages to random people, offering huge profits through forex.

Acting on a victim’s complaint from Hyderabad, the police launched an investigation into the scam that spread to several cities.

They seized ₹13,00,000 and confiscated a laptop and six mobile phones used by the accused Shahnawaz Abdul Rehman Lakhani (Gujarat), Alok Pawar and and Nawaz Ansari (Maharashtra), and Niket Shetty (Karnataka). Some of them were identified as telecallers.

“They would collect personal identities such as Aadhar and PAN to create an online trading account. The clients will have access only to view the account operated by the accused, but they cannot directly trade,” Srinivas told BusinessLine .

“Initially the clients were shown some profits in their accounts, but after collecting huge amounts from clients the accused used to delete the accounts,” he said.

Those who responded to the bulk mails would get details about the lucrative forex trading and packages. Also, they would be provided with IDs and password but no access to trading.

The cyber police have asked investors to be careful about the lures.

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