Hyderabad techie duped of Rs 2.36 cr in investment fraud

The victim paid Rs 2.3 crore between September 1 and December 12, and the app displayed increasing profits, and the techie was in an illusion that he was making profits.

Hyderabad: A Hyderabad based software engineer was duped of Rs 2.36 crore by a cyber fraudster posing as a woman on Facebook who lured the victim into online trading investment in August 2025.

The victim was a resident of Kondapur. According to Cyberabad police, the victim received a friend request from the woman, identifying herself as Kora. The fraudster claimed to be from Singapore and that she was working in Mumbai.

They began chatting on Facebook regularly, and Kora persuaded the victim to invest in trading. To gain his trust, the fraudster added the software engineer to a group titled “Facebook Store”, claiming that group members made profits.

APK file used for installing app

After the victim was convinced, Kora sent him an APK file from which the former had to download an app. After downloading it, an application similar to Facebook appeared on the victim’s phone, designed to mimic a genuine trading platform.

The victim was also introduced to a woman identifying herself as Bella, who claimed to be based in Germany. Based on the instructions of the women, the software engineer began investing, thinking he was trading products.

The victim paid Rs 2.3 crore between September 1 and December 12, and the app displayed increasing profits, and the techie was in an illusion that he was making profits. However, when the victim tried to withdraw money, he was unable to do so.

Realising he had been duped, the victim approached the Cyberabad Cybercrime Police. Based on the complaint of the victim, a case was booked a case under Sections 318(4) (cheating), 319(2) (cheating by personation), 336(3) (forgery for purpose of cheating), 338 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.) and 340(2) (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), read with 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).