Three men in their early 20s have been arrested in the city for allegedly cheating a 19-year-old college student in Chennai with an alleged fake advertisement on social media to lure people into investing in stocks for double returns.
Police in Kolkata said the teenager who apparently lost Rs 30,000 committed suicide in April following the losses she incurred through online trading. Chennai police started a case against the beneficiaries of the money she had invested.
A team of Chennai police came to Kolkata and arrested the three youths in the Port area on Tuesday and took them to Chennai on Wednesday.
Lalbazar sources said the victim, who lived with her mother in Chennai, had come across the advertisement on Instagram. “The advertisement lured netizens to invest in particular stocks by promising them double the amount in return. The victim apparently wanted to support her family financially and invested Rs 30,000 in some stocks. Within a few minutes, she was told that the stock price had doubled. However, when she tried to sell the stocks online to encash them, she realised that the stocks she had purchased were fake,” said the officer.
The next morning, her mother found her hanging from the ceiling fan in her room. Chennai police found that her financial losses had triggered her death.
A Kolkata police officer said Chennai police traced three bank accounts where the swindled money had been transferred. All the bank accounts were in Kolkata.
A Chennai police team tracked down the three youths, aged between 20 and 22, and arrested them.