By Ubaid Mukhtar
Srinagar, 09 Sep: In a first, an online scam has been creating its legs in Jammu and Kashmir. The scammer is a US based person, and is looting people through its Instagram account.
While intreacting, one of a citizen who has been looted recent, told Eternal Kashmir that “an online scam that happened with a few people including me. Recently i was browsing on the social media platform instagram, and I saw a story on my instagram friend’s wall that he had invested in bitcoin with the help of a professional investor based in USA and that he had got huge returns in return for that investment,” he said.
“The story actually showed the screenshot of the main screen of his iPhone wherein a bank credit transaction message was reflecting. I was lured into this and contacted my instagram friend on his messenger and he convinced me about the investment and authenticity of that American based investor who was supposedly handling his cryptocurrency profile,” he said.
“Then, I contacted the so called investor namely, (donning as a lady) on instagram and she made me establish trust on her and finally made I made a transfer of Rs 10, 000 to a UPI id, and thereafter, she sent me the domain id of a fake portal where I was able to see my earnings.”
“This reinforced the convincement in my mind even more that the party was authentic. Next day she made me download the “Binance trading app”, and purchase bitcoins for 15000 rupees. Thera-after, she guided me and sent me an encrypted link. Once I clicked that link, the bitcoin balance vanished from my wallet and was transferred to some third party wallet.”
“Later when I asked her about my profits and withdrawal, she asked me to finally deposit 25, 000 in another link that she had sent. At this point my basic instincts rose and I stopped myself from transferring any further amount.”
Later on, “I established direct contact with that Instagram friend of mine by calling him, wherein I came to know that his account had been hacked by the same scammer misused it by uploading fake stories and sending convincing messages about the fake profile.”
“By using this trick, they had befooled many people in his friend list and trapped them into this investment trap.”
Now, “I request the cyber police Kashmir, to please look into this matter and locate the culprits, as they have stripped a lot of gullible people of their hard earned money and would continue this immoral activity in the future too, If they aren’t brought to justice,” he said. (Eternal Kashmir)
