A 27-year-old Bengaluru man, who is a software engineer, lost Rs 17 lakh in 24 hours to cybercriminals who lured him with an offer for part-time work-from-home jobs through WhatsApp messages.
The man, a resident of Kammanahalli, stated in his complaint to the East CEN Crime Police that he lost the money between 10 a.m. on April 10, 2025, and 10 a.m. the following day.
On April 10, he received a WhatsApp message from the number 8144647332, sent by someone who identified herself as Shamika, offering him a well-paying, part-time work-from-home job. When the victim showed interest, she asked him to join a telegram group and shared a link with the ID name ‘Shabana Sharma’. She then instructed him to fill in his personal details with the provided link and added him to a daily task group on Telegram, where he was expected to complete scheduled tasks.
His tasks were simple, clinking on a few links, liking them, and writing reviews. For each task, he received Rs 75. After every two tasks, he was assigned a ‘welfare task,’ which required him to deposit money in order to receive a commission on the amount he deposited.
After paying him for a few small tasks, Shamika convinced him that he could earn more through trading. She then shared a link to a trading website for registration.
For the first welfare task, she asked him to deposit Rs 1,000 and he received Rs 1,400 in return, Encouraged by the quick profit, he deposited Rs 5,000 for the second welfare task and got Rs 7,520 back.
A mentor named Sanya Meht, was assigned to guide him. To take on the third welfare task, he was asked to deposit Rs 15,000 as a recharge amount. After making the payment, he was directed to an instructor named Aacharya and added to a Telegram group called ’10/04{15000}ATHEVA Task Group’, where members boasted about their profits and shared fake screenshots of credited amounts to create an illusion of legitimacy.
After transferring the Rs 15,000, he was asked to send another Rs 15,000 for “settlement.” Later, they convinced him to pay Rs 50,000 for a second order, promising higher returns. They then claimed a system error had occurred during the task and told him he needed to pay Rs 1.5 lakh to resolve the issue. To restore his “credit score” and proceed further, he was made to deposit another Rs 3.5 lakh
After transferring money to various bank accounts and digital payment apps, Arjun was instructed to contact a manager named Isha Sharma. Using multiple pretexts, including charges to recover his blocked account, they tricked him into paying an additional Rs 11.3 lakh. Despite the large payments, he received only Rs 1,888 in return. Later, they demanded another Rs 3.6 lakh as “tax” to withdraw his earnings and complete the final settlement. Realizing it was a scam as the demands for more money continued, Arjun finally suspected fraud and approached the police.
A case was registered under Information Technology Act and BNS section 318 (cheating) on April 15.