A 64-year-old resident of Thane has allegedly lost ₹65.95 lakh in a cryptocurrency scam that unfolded gradually over more than six months, beginning with a modest test investment and escalating steadily as fraudsters posing as investment experts convinced him that larger sums were the only way to recover money that had already become inaccessible.
A Small Investment That Grew Into a Large Loss
According to police, the fraud played out between January 9 and July 17, 2026. It began when the victim was persuaded to invest through two mobile applications marketed as cryptocurrency and Bitcoin trading platforms, promising attractive short-term returns. He started cautiously, putting in an initial ₹95,000, a sum small enough that the potential loss would have been manageable had the scheme ended there.
It did not. The apps displayed apparent profits almost immediately, creating the impression of a genuine, functioning investment rather than a fabricated dashboard designed purely to build confidence. When the victim eventually tried to withdraw his principal along with the displayed earnings, the applications blocked the transactions outright, offering no clear explanation.
A Second Layer of Deception
Rather than abandoning the scheme at that point, two individuals identifying themselves as Sushant Arora and Sanjeev Kumar contacted the victim through WhatsApp audio calls, presenting themselves as investment experts. They allegedly assured him that investing larger sums would not only generate significant profits but would also unlock the funds that had already become stuck, a classic escalation tactic that uses a victim’s existing losses as leverage to extract further payments rather than allowing him to walk away.
Believing their assurances, the victim transferred additional funds across multiple instalments over the following months, eventually bringing his total investment to ₹65.95 lakh. Despite the scale of what he had put in, he was ultimately unable to recover either his original investment or any of the promised returns, at which point he recognised he had been defrauded and approached the police.
Kalwa Police in Thane have registered a case under Section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deals with cheating, along with relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act, against the operators of the two mobile applications and the two individuals who contacted the victim via WhatsApp. Investigators are now examining bank accounts, digital transaction records, mobile numbers, WhatsApp communication logs and other electronic evidence in an effort to trace those responsible.
Thane’s Recurring Vulnerability
This is far from an isolated case in the district. Thane has recorded a striking concentration of similar crypto investment frauds targeting individuals across age groups in recent months, including an 81-year-old Ghodbunder Road resident who lost ₹86.9 lakh after a Facebook friendship migrated to WhatsApp and a fake trading dashboard, and a 70-year-old man defrauded of ₹72.98 lakh through a fabricated share trading scheme run along nearly identical lines. Maharashtra as a whole recorded 2.19 lakh financial fraud cases worth roughly ₹38,000 crore in 2024 alone, with Mumbai and its neighbouring districts, including Thane, consistently topping the state’s cybercrime figures, underscoring how entrenched this fraud category has become in the region specifically.
Police say cases like this typically follow a recognisable arc: a small initial investment that appears to succeed, a period of visible but entirely fabricated profit growth, and then an abrupt block on withdrawals justified through invented technical issues, verification requirements or processing charges, all designed to extract further money from a victim who has already committed enough that walking away feels like accepting total loss.
Expert Advice
According to renowned cybercrime expert and former IPS officer Prof Triveni Singh, organised cybercriminals running cryptocurrency and online investment scams typically invest considerable time building a victim’s trust before ever directing them toward a fake digital investment platform. He advised investors to independently verify the legitimacy of any investment platform, company or website before transferring money, and cautioned that any offer promising unusually high or guaranteed returns, or demanding repeated payments to unlock a withdrawal, should be treated as a serious warning sign. In such situations, he said, individuals should immediately stop making further payments and report the matter to the appropriate cybercrime authorities without delay.
