Mysuru: Online fraudsters, who lured a retired official into online trading, have cheated him to the tune of Rs. 2.98 crore.

The retired official, who was cheated, is 61-year-old Suresh (name changed), a resident of BEML Layout in Rajarajeshwari Nagar 2nd Stage in city.

Suresh, who was browsing his Facebook page in January, came across an advertisement pertaining to online trading and clicked on the link given below and his mobile was immediately added to the WhatsApp group of Barclays and Share Khan Edge.

Suresh then began to go through the information being shared in the WhatsApp group and sought information regarding investment.

The fraudsters, who came to know that Suresh was interested to invest money, sent him a website link and instructed him to open an account. Suresh then clicked on the link and opened two accounts in Barclays and Share Khan Edge’s two websites.

Initially, Suresh invested Rs. 90,000 in Barkleys trading account and Rs. 25,000 in Share Khan trading account for which Suresh was paid Rs. 14,791 and Rs. 2,300 as profit.

Assuming that he could earn huge profit in a short period of time, Suresh invested a total of Rs. 2,98,18,838 in phases.

After a few days, Suresh tried to withdraw the profit for which he was told to deposit 20 percent of the profit as tax. Suresh then informed that he did not have money and asked to give the profit so that he could pay the tax immediately.

Suresh again tried to withdraw the profit but his request was rejected. Learning that he had been cheated, Suresh lodged a complaint at city’s CEN Crime Police Station.