Chandigarh: Businessman duped of ₹22-L in trading scam

In his complaint filed with the Cyber Crime Police Station, Sector 17, Manish Malhotra, a resident of Sector 29-D, stated that the fraud began on June 22 when he received a Facebook friend request from a woman identifying herself as Jyotica Dilaik, purportedly from Shimla but currently based in Hyderabad

A Chandigarh-based businessman was duped of over ₹22.34 lakh by cyber fraudsters who lured him into a fake online trading scheme through social media and instant messaging platforms.

The Cyber Crime Police have registered a case under Sections 318(4), 338, 336(3), 340(2), and 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). (HT Photo for representation)

In his complaint filed with the Cyber Crime Police Station, Sector 17, Manish Malhotra, a resident of Sector 29-D, stated that the fraud began on June 22 when he received a Facebook friend request from a woman identifying herself as Jyotica Dilaik, purportedly from Shimla but currently based in Hyderabad. Claiming to belong to the same profession as the complainant, she introduced him to “profitable” trading through her alleged mentor Sanjeev Bhatnagar.

According to Malhotra, he was added to a Telegram group named Trading G32, where Bhatnagar convinced him to invest through trading websites. The victim alleged that the fraudsters displayed large profits in his account but demanded hefty commissions ranging between 10% and 30%. Malhotra shared that the scammers extracted payments under the pretext of “channel upgradation fee,” “US taxation,” and “cross-border transaction fee,” adding these amounts to his so-called accumulated profits, which eventually reflected a balance of around USD 52,350.