Cyber Fraudsters Steal Over Rs 10 crore of Two Victims in IPO Scam Case

Cyber Fraudsters Steal Over Rs 10 crore: Two investors have become the victims of a two-crore scam in IPO. These scammers issue fake IPOs that look totally like IPOs of well-known financial firms like Goldman Sachs and IIFL Securities.

These two individuals have lost over Rs 10 crore in the IPO scam.

The first victim’s name is Gopu Venugopala Reddy who is a businessman in Kukatpally. He was manipulated through a WhatsApp message that said to get access to block trade and early IPOs of “Goldman Sachs Business School,” if he joined them.

The reports further stated that a woman called Reddy and told him that she is the assistant from to the managing director of Goldman Sachs and could assist him in trading in the stock market through institutional accounts.

In a complaint, Reddy said, “She guided me to register for the scheme through a Google form and download a trading app called ‘GSIN’. Following the instructions, I started crediting money into various accounts from January 30 for the purchase of shares in nine companies and to participate in IPOs of four companies.”

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The FIR further revealed that the money was transferred to 11 different accounts from Reddy’s savings accounts. The FIR also added that Reddy invested 5.9 crore and the transaction amounts added up to 21 crore.

The local police report quoted by TOI, “One Sita, claiming to be the PA of the MD, instructed Reddy to sell all his holdings on February 22. When he inquired about the process of withdrawing his funds, she insisted on a payment of 20% of the profit, i.e., 2.8 crore, to withdraw his money. Reddy requested them to withhold 20% and release the balance, but they insisted on a minimum payment of 10% of profits, i.e., 1.4 crore. Realising that he had been duped, Reddy lodged a complaint.”

The second victim of the fraud was Konduri Hrushikesh who is a software consultant situated in Kondapur.

As per the official reports, he lost around 5.2 crore in the same scam. Hrushikesh said he saw a Facebook post that said profitable stock recommendations and joined an “A117 IIFL SECURITIES Official Stock Community” WhatsApp group on May 7.

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He said that a person named Ankur Kedia was the admin of the and he was the chief investment officer (CIO) of IIFL Securities.

Konduri Hrushikesh added, “They advised us to start applying for IPOs of companies. As retail buyers don’t usually get much allocation, they advised us to join their stockbroking application and apply for IPOs through ‘Institutional buyers’ as high net worth Individuals. They shared account details of a few firms, claiming these were regulatory accounts for processing such transactions as per IIFL Securities’ procedures.”

Hrushikesh further said, “Between June 9 and July 2, we credited 5.2 crore to their accounts. However, when we tried to withdraw the amounts, we were unable to process any withdrawals. When we contacted customer care, they provided evasive responses and unreasonable excuses, demanding additional funds to process the withdrawal. That’s when we realised we had been scammed.”

However, both Gopu Venugopala Reddy and Konduri Hrushikesh have filed complaints with the Cyber Crime Helpline and investigations are going on to arrest these IPO scammers.

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