Madurai: A WhatsApp group promising access to Wall Street trades led a Tamil Nadu investor to a fake app, a Rs92 lakh loss and a cybercrime trail that ended in Kolkata.Tenkasi cybercrime police arrested Nawab Ali Golder, 26, of Damkali village in North 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, on Monday for allegedly being part of a network that cheated people through fake investment apps resembling McKinley Global and CMC Markets. He was produced before the Tenkasi judicial magistrate and jailed at Palayamkottai prison on Wednesday.Police said the network targeted southern Tamil Nadu, including Tenkasi, where online trading interest and private stock market training agencies have grown, drawing business people into such scams.Inspector Vasanthi of Tenkasi cybrecrime police said victims were drawn through Instagram ads and added to a WhatsApp group named “Stock Market Profit Plan Exchange”. The group carried posts showing success stories of people who had allegedly made money through US stock market investments“Members were first asked to invest a few thousand rupees. Bank account details of receivers were shared in the group, and the fake apps showed proof of investment. To gain trust, the gang deposited the promised returns into investors’ bank accounts,” she said.Police said victims were then pushed to invest a few lakh rupees, with returns paid briefly in instalments. Once larger deposits were made, the app stopped working, a stage investigators call the “golden point”.In Manikandan’s case, police said he invested around Rs92 lakh after joining the group and downloading the app. When he tried to withdraw the profit, he was told to pay another Rs37 lakh to receive the returns. Realising that he had been cheated, he filed a complaint with Tenkasi cybercrime police.Investigation traced the WhatsApp group to West Bengal. When the police team first reached Damkali, Golder, suspected to be the group admin, escaped after throwing away the SIM card used in his phone. Further inquiry revealed that he was in Kolkata, where he was arrested and brought to Tamil Nadu.Preliminary inquiry suggested that Golder was part of a larger Bengal-based network that targeted potential traders in southern Tamil Nadu, police said.
