Coimbatore folk lose Rs24 crore to cyber fraudsters till May 15

Coimbatore: Awareness campaigns by police to sensitize the public about cybercrimes do not seem to have yielded desirable results, with an increasing number of city residents falling prey to cyber fraudsters every other day. As per the data available with the city cybercrime police, city folk have lost Rs23.91 crore to online scamsters from January 2025 to May 15.

A Saravana Sundar, city police commissioner, said the people who wanted to invest their money in online trading were being lured by cyber fraudsters, who send them links through Telegram, Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp, asking them to download fake online trading apps. "People should not trust such apps and strangers who approach them with promises of huge profits in online trading."

He said the people should not invest in any third-party online trading mobile applications. "Educated people are falling into the traps laid by online fraudsters. They should be very cautious."

Another police officer said P Ramesh, 46, a dentist from Coimbatore, had lost Rs52 lakh to cyber fraudsters very recently. "He was looking for online share market details on a website and clicked a link. A stranger contacted him over phone and asked him to download a mobile application. The dentist downloaded the app and invested Rs52 lakh from March 17 to April 14. The digital wallet of the mobile application displayed Rs2 crore in his account. The dentist attempted to withdraw the amount, but in vain. He realized that he was cheated and lodged a complaint with us."

P Arun, inspector, city cybercrime police station, said the cyber fraudsters were involved in FedEx scam last year. "They threatened people by posing as police officers and cheated crores of rupees from the city residents. The FedEx scam was drastically reduced following repeated awareness campaigns by the govt and police department. Now, the fake online trading app scam is trending in the city. City folk have lost Rs23.91 crore to cyber fraudsters from January to May 15 this year. Of this, around 80% of the amount was lost in the fake online trading app scam."

The city police commissioner said they had been creating awareness among the people from all walks of life to prevent them from becoming victims of cybercrime cases.