Mumbai: Fan trusts actress, loses Rs 52,000 to scamster

The Sahu Nagar police have registered an FIR against Indian television actress Sonarika Bhadoria after a fan watched a video on her feed and invested in cryptocurrency only to lose Rs 52000 The police claim that Bhadoria uploaded a promotional video on her Instagram account directing her followers to a scamster accountThe victim Parmesh Shankar Maitri a 29yearold resident of Indira Nagar in Dharavi and an event organiser is an avid fan of Bhadoria and had been following her on Instagram The Sahu Nagar Police have also booked the unidentified scamster involved in this case and will be summoning Bhadoria for questioningSpeaking to midday Maitri stated ldquoI am a big fan of Bhadoria and have watched all her films On September 3 I noticed that Bhadoria had uploaded a video on her account bsonarikardquoSonarika BhadoriaIn the video Bhadoria said ldquoHi guys since many of you have been asking me how to earn money online in this digital era this is the most trusted page ishika_jaiswal where you can earn a lot of money So go ahead follow her page follow her process and start earningrdquoMaitri saw this video and sent a message to the ishika_jaiswal page account The scamster responded ldquoHello are you interested in earning money through tradingrdquo to which Maitri replied in the affirmative The scamster then told Maitri that she was a trader ldquoWe will invest your money in cryptocurrency By investing here you will receive a good profit in just two hours of trading as well as from gold trade on the Thai exchange We also engage in second intratrading and sniper trading on the NYSErdquoMaitri admitted to midday that he trusted Bhadoria and sent a payment of Rs 10000 via UPI providing a screenshot of the payment to Ishika Jaiswal The scamster created an account for Maitri and later the scamster requested an additional payment of Rs 18000 for a login which Maitri promptly sentA few hours later the scamster messaged Maitri congratulating him ldquoYour investment has been successful You will receive Rs 32000 and your security deposit of Rs 18000 Within the next 15 minutes you will have a total of Rs 64300 However you need to pay a withdrawal fee of Rs 24700 rupees which will be refunded and you will receive Rs 99800 rupeesrdquoAs Maitri did not have sufficient funds he did not send the money on the same day requesting more time On September 4 the scamster sent Maitri a video showing the trading page with his name Parmesh Maitri and displayed a profit Maitri managed to arrange the funds and sent Rs 24700 to the accountAfter this payment the scamster demanded an additional Rs 19999 as late fees Maitri grew suspicious and requested that all the money he had sent be returnedIt was then that Maitri understood he had been cheated by the scamster He promptly informed the police about the incident on September 5 and registered an FIR Maitri said ldquoI also messaged actress Sonarika Bhadoria about the incident but she did not respond I invested money because the actress posted a video on her Instagram page Bhadoria is solely responsible for this incident and she should not promote anything that may deceive her fansrdquoldquoI request that she refrain from publishing such videos without proper verificationrdquo he added Speaking to midday PSI Umesh Vichare of the Sahu Nagar police station said ldquoWe have booked actress Sonarika Bhadoria for promoting a video on her Instagram page that directs followers to earn money We will summon Bhadoria for questioning and record her statement If we find anything incriminating we will take actionrdquo The FIR has been registered under IPC sections 419 420 66d and 66c midday also tried to contact a Bhadoria but she didnrsquot respond to calls or messages