A 60-year-old woman in Mangaluru has allegedly lost around ₹13.7 lakh after being drawn into an online share-trading scheme through WhatsApp and persuaded to transfer money to multiple bank accounts over three months.
The woman told CEN Crime Police that the contact began on May 28 with a message promoting high returns from stock-market investments. Soon afterwards, a person using the name Joshua B Saji allegedly called her through WhatsApp from a UK number and encouraged her to invest.
What began with a payment of just ₹15,819 eventually grew into transfers running into lakhs.
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Small first payment allegedly opened the door to larger transfers
According to the complaint, the initial WhatsApp message purported to be connected with “WSFX Global Pay/Quantum AI” and claimed investors could make attractive profits through share trading.
The caller allegedly collected some of the woman’s personal details and persuaded her to begin with a relatively small investment.
She transferred ₹15,819 through UPI on May 28.
After that first payment, she was allegedly encouraged to continue.
Between May 28 and August 27, the woman transferred around ₹13.5 lakh through NEFT and RTGS to different bank accounts supplied by the people communicating with her.
News Karnataka puts the total alleged loss at approximately ₹13.74 lakh.
The pattern is familiar in investment frauds: the first payment is kept deliberately small so that the victim feels the risk is limited.
Once trust develops, the requested amounts gradually increase.
Withdrawal failure exposed the alleged fraud
The scheme unravelled when the woman tried to withdraw her investment.
She was unable to access the money and calls to the people who had been contacting her allegedly went unanswered.
That is when she realised she may have been cheated and approached the CEN Crime Police.
A case has now been registered against unidentified persons, and police are examining the recipient accounts, the UK-linked WhatsApp number and other digital evidence.
Investigators will need to trace where the money went after reaching those beneficiary accounts and determine whether the same accounts appear in other cybercrime complaints.
Real company name may have been used to create credibility
One detail requires particular care.
WSFx Global Pay Ltd is a genuine listed Indian financial-services company. Public market records show it continues to make normal regulatory filings and corporate announcements.
The complaint, however, says the victim received messages using the name “WSFX Global Pay/Quantum AI”.
There is currently no evidence that the legitimate company itself was involved in the alleged fraud.
That distinction matters because cybercriminals frequently borrow the names of genuine financial companies, brokers or investment brands to make a scam appear credible.
A familiar brand can lower a victim’s suspicion even when the phone number, website or payment account has no real connection with the company.
UK number did not make the caller legitimate
The use of a foreign number can also create a false sense of sophistication.
In this case, the caller allegedly used a UK number to communicate over WhatsApp.
That does not establish that the person was physically in the United Kingdom.
Internet-based calling and virtual numbers can allow people to communicate using numbers from other countries without being located there.
For investigators, the visible country code is therefore only one piece of evidence.
The more useful trail often comes from device data, account-registration records, IP information and the movement of money through bank accounts.
Why these scams keep working
Investment fraudsters generally do not need a sophisticated trading system.
They only need to convince the victim that a genuine investment exists.
Messages may promise exceptional returns, callers may use financial jargon and victims may be shown screenshots or dashboards indicating profits.
But the most important warning sign is where the money is actually being sent.
A legitimate regulated trading relationship should be independently verifiable through the broker, exchange and demat-account structure.
Repeated transfers into unrelated bank accounts supplied through WhatsApp should immediately raise suspicion.
The Ministry of Home Affairs and I4C have separately warned about fake WhatsApp and Telegram investment groups that use private app links and guaranteed-return claims to draw victims into fraudulent trading schemes.
Police now follow the banking trail
The Mangaluru investigation is expected to focus heavily on the beneficiary accounts.
Those accounts may be controlled directly by the fraudsters or may belong to mule-account holders who allow their banking credentials to be used in exchange for payment.
Police will also examine whether the phone numbers and accounts in this case have previously appeared in complaints from other states.
If several victims transferred money into the same account network, investigators may be able to connect what first looks like an isolated ₹13.7 lakh loss to a larger operation.
What this means for you
Never treat a WhatsApp message, overseas phone number or familiar company name as proof that an investment offer is genuine. Verify the intermediary independently through SEBI and recognised exchanges before transferring any money.
The420 Insight
This case shows how quickly a small test payment can become a major loss. The strongest signal was not the promised return or the UK number — it was the repeated request to send real money into accounts controlled outside any independently verified trading platform.
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