Noida: Two women from the city were cheated of nearly Rs 64 lakh through a fake online stock trading scam and a ‘customs’ ruse. One was promised a killing on the stock market and the other realised quite late that she had been fooled into becoming a friend with ‘benefits’.Police said a 43-year-old woman from Greater Noida has alleged that she came in contact with a woman on social media on April 4, 2026. She introduced herself as a stock market expert and convinced her that substantial profits could be earned by investing in shares and subscribing to IPOs. She then sent a link to download a mobile application for trading.Taken in by the offer, the woman installed the app and began transferring money to bank accounts provided by the cybercriminal. Police said she made multiple transactions between April 19 and June 26 and invested a total of Rs 53 lakh through the app. The interface allegedly displayed significant profits. However, when she tried to withdraw the amount, the woman demanded a 15% service fee, which too was paid. When she made more demands, the woman realised that she had been cheated and filed a complaint at the cybercrime branch on Wednesday.A case under BNS for cheating and impersonation, along with sections of the Information Technology Act, has been registered. The woman is yet to be identified, or the money traced.In another case, a 34-year-old woman from the city, who currently stays in Singapore, lost Rs 11.3 lakh in an online fraud involving fake customs seizure.According to the FIR in the case, she befriended a woman, Mira, who claimed to be a wealthy businesswoman based in Poland. She allegedly came in contact with the ‘multimillionaire’ on April 4 this year. She claimed to be from Bengaluru and owned several properties in the city. Over a month, the women spoke on the phone and the cybercon gained the woman’s trust.On April 26, Mira told the woman that she had to fly to Bengaluru urgently because of a family emergency and asked her to lend her Rs 1.2 lakh. She said she would repay the amount after she sold her father’s property in the city. Mira told the woman that she was flying to Bengaluru from Poland with a layover in Mumbai and would meet her in Bengaluru to return the money.The woman accordingly booked a flight from Singapore to Bengaluru. “I then received calls from a woman posing as an officer of the Mumbai airport customs who claimed that Mira had been detained with one million Euros in cash and luxury jewellery, and threatened that her passport would be blacklisted if customs duty was not paid,” the woman wrote in her complaint.Fearing legal consequences for her ‘friend’, the Noida woman transferred money in multiple instalments. She tried video calling Mira but the ‘customs authority’ denied her access. Soon, Mira’s number was switched off. This finally made her suspicious and she filed a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. The cybercrime branch has registered an FIR under cheating-related provisions.
