Hyderabad: A 78-year-old retired employee from Nanakramguda allegedly lost ₹5.1 crore in a stock market investment cyber fraud. The complainant told the police that in Sept 2025, he came across a YouTube advertisement promoting investment opportunities in financial markets. “I contacted the advertiser through a number provided in the advertisement.On Sept 17, I was contacted on WhatsApp by a person identifying himself as Srinivas Rao, a financial adviser at Naka Solutions, London. Srinivas Rao communicated with me in Telugu to build trust and cultural affinity,” the complainant alleged. On Sept 22, 2025, Srinivas Rao shared a fake trading platform link (https://trade.nakasolutions.com) and assigned the victim a client ID. On Rao’s advice, the victim began transferring money to different bank accounts towards investment in stocks, while the fake platform displayed ‘capital gains’ of USD 17 lakh.By displaying fake profits on the platform, the fraudsters demanded payments under various heads, including stamp duty reserve tax, insurance premium, conversion fee, foreign inward remittance certificate processing charges, gateway charges and SWIFT charges. The victim also alleged that the accused routed payments through multiple third-party Indian bank accounts described as `RBI-approved merchants’.Believing them, the victim transferred over ₹5.1 crore through 53 transactions between Sept 2025 and April 2026. Apart from Rao, the victim also named Raman Singh, Anuj Singhal, Ananya and Vishal Mishra as other fraudsters who interacted with him. After the accused stopped all communication after collecting ₹40 lakh in the last week of April, the victim realised that he was duped and approached TGCSB Headquarters on Friday.Based on his complaint, a case was registered under Sections 66D of the Information Technology Act and Sections 318(4) (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 319(2) (cheating by personation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
