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A day after The Indian Express reported the arrest of a 21-year-old man from Kolkata who had allegedly deceived several people by promising to “double their investment within minutes”, Kalachukki police said on Saturday that three social media influencers had also been booked. in case.
Police said the social media influencers — Akshay Athari, Mansi Souravas and Ankita Bhagat — helped promote the crypto scammer’s Instagram account.
“These influencers have been misleading people by claiming (in their promotional videos) that they have invested their money and it doubled within a few minutes. This is why they were booked,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (4th District) Prashant Kadam said.
According to the police, a case was registered at the Kalashuke Police Station on June 23, after which the accused, Muhammad Hamza Zaki Anwar, was tracked down in Khedirpur in Kolkata. A team was sent to his residence and arrested. “Several people in the same area committed similar crimes to deceive people,” said a police officer.
According to the police, Anwar, who is in Class 12, created an Instagram account called Crypto_Anaisha through which he was allegedly scamming people claiming he could double their money in 30 to 35 minutes by investing it in cryptocurrency.
The accused even posted advertisements and promotions on Instagram. Several people approached him and eventually deceived him. The complainant in the case also came across one such promotion by a social media influencer. “It came to our attention that Athare earned Rs 30,000 in July 2022 for promoting Anwar’s Instagram account for two to three days while Suravase earned Rs 40,000. An officer said Ankita earned Rs 25,000 in July 2022 for promoting his account.
Police said Athari and Souravasi’s statements were recorded, and they were notified to travel and let them go. These influencers have followers in the millions on their Instagram accounts and when they post such promotional videos, their followers think that they themselves have invested their money, which has doubled. There are no such schemes by the government that these influencers promote. Instead, they were helping the fraudster drive more people to fall for such claims… That’s why we booked them,” said one of the officers.
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