Pune: 85-year-old loses ₹22cr in massive cyber scam
An 85-year-old man from Gurugram lost ₹22 crore in one of the biggest individual cyber fraud cases reported in Pune.
The scammers added him to a WhatsApp group called "Special Training Team," convinced him to use a fake trading app, and promised huge profits.
Between October 25 last year and January 10 this year, he ended up transferring money in around 80 transactions—from his and his wife's bank accounts, including life savings and proceeds from earlier sales of his property and company—before realizing it was all a scam.
Police response and growing warnings
After the victim approached the Cyber Crime Police Station along with his son, Pune Cyber Crime Police filed an FIR, but no arrests yet.
This isn't an isolated case; similar scams have hit others in Pune, including one where an IT professional lost ₹3.66 crore.
SEBI had already warned about these kinds of WhatsApp trading scams in an advisory issued last year (2025), but cases like this show how important it is to stay alert online.