The investment scream claimed to be a Finnish banker.
The scammers claimed that Finnish Nordea was a mediator in a shareholder. Nordea is aware of similar cases of some songs a year. Tiina Somerpuro/KL
The Indian Central Criminal Police has arrested a criminal team that, in the name of Nordea, has attracted an Indian businessman to invest 80 million rupees, or about EUR 880,000 in non -existent shares.
The businessman had invested money in a variety of accounts through a trading application created by criminals from the advice of a cheater who claimed himself as a Finnish banker.
The cheater appeared in WhatsApp messages as the name Sanjay Sharma and claimed to be Nordea CEO. According to a businessman, the cheater had attracted “successful equity investments”.
As a businessman tried to raise his profits, he was asked to deposit more than five million more rupees. At this point, he realized that he had been cheated.
The Indian Central Criminal Police first arrested a 21-year-old woman in Mumbai, after which it was revealed that the scam was based on a nationwide criminal force. According to police, the gang had advertised a lot on different soma platforms to attract investors, says Times of India.
International
Nordea is aware of similar cases of some songs a year.
– Investment scams are an extensive, international phenomenon and occur in the name of a variety of financial institutions, including Nordea, around the world. Individuals are also actively reporting to us about scams outside Finland, says Nordea’s expert in fraud control Sara Helin For Kauppalehti.
It is typical that the subject of the scam will begin to find out the right thing when the scam is revealed.
“We always guide the subject of the scam to inform the local authorities,” Helin said.
One of the most important factors in the fight against investment scams is the dissemination of consciousness, Helin adds.
Investment scams in growth
According to the Cyber Crime Coordination Center of the Indian web crime center, in 2023, Indian victims lost EUR 192 million in investment scams alone.
In 2023, more than one million cases of investment fraud reported in India. According to the online crime center, there were more than 81,000 investment scams in WhatsApp alone in 2023, most of whom were present as legal brokers. Criminals often promise high returns in a short time.
In India, the amount of cybercrime has increased significantly in recent years. The growth is due to the rapid development of digitalization and the spread of the use of the Internet to sparsely populated areas.
Digital literacy in India is behind Western countries and people may not be able to recognize scams.
Another factor in India’s huge number of scams is that a lot of young people with technical education, but they have no meaningful work. It is therefore easy to recruit them with criminal activities.
The increase in the number of scams can also be explained by the country’s unprecedented small investor boom.
With applications downloaded to smartphones, equity investing has become easy and the Indians can invest in a small amount. A steady increase in value in the country’s market has also contributed to supporting investment enthusiasm.
The international Cyber Crime Index, an international raising the prevalence of online crime, India finished tenth.
Facts
Circums of cyber criminals
There are several laws in India to combat cybercrime.
The country’s government has established special cybercrime control units.
An average of 7,000 cybercrime reports are reported on a daily basis.
About 70 percent of Indian companies have been subjected to cyber scam in recent years.