Kalaburagi: Cyberfraudsters cheated a 63-year-old retired Gescom employee of Rs 2.2 crore by luring him with promises of high returns through an auto trading investment scheme. The victim is Dattappa Surapur, a resident of Akkamahadevi Colony in Kalaburagi.According to the complaint, Dattappa came across an advertisement related to ‘auto trading’ while watching reels on social media on June 11, 2025. After clicking the link and entering his personal details, he was contacted by a person identifying himself as Arun Joshi, who persuaded him to invest in a platform called ‘Quanta Pulse’.
Initially, Dattappa invested Rs 12,000 and began receiving daily profits ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 800, which boosted his confidence in the scheme. Subsequently, he was encouraged to invest Rs 2 lakh, after which his online account reportedly showed a profit of Rs 4 crore.When he attempted to withdraw Rs 1.3 crore from the displayed profits, he received an email stating that Rs 80 lakh was to be paid towards taxes and other charges to enable the withdrawal. Trusting the instructions, the victim transferred Rs 80 lakh in stages.The fraudsters later informed him that the amount had been converted into Indian currency and credited to his account. However, the money was never received. They then claimed that the insured amount, including his withdrawal, rose to Rs 2.3 crore and demanded additional payments of Rs 32 lakh, and later Rs 50 lakh, towards insurance, taxes, and processing charges. In this manner, the fraudsters extracted a total of Rs 2.2 crore from the victim in multiple transactions on various pretexts, the complaint stated.Following the incident, a case was registered against five unidentified persons at the Kalaburagi Cyber Economic and Narcotics (CEN) police station, and further investigation is underway.