A case has been registered against Google India’s nodal officer in Hyderabad for alleged negligence after an employee of a defence public sector undertaking lost Rs 7.95 lakh through an allegedly fraudulent trading application downloaded from the Google Play Store, news agency PTI reported quoting police.
The case was registered at the Cyberabad Cyber Crime police station following a complaint filed by the victim.
According to police, the complainant was contacted by fraudsters through a social media platform in July. The administrators allegedly advised him to open an account and invest money through the trading application, PTI reported.
The victim transferred Rs 7.95 lakh to different bank accounts through the app. While the application displayed profits on his investment, his withdrawal requests were rejected, the report said.
He was subsequently asked to pay an additional amount as a withdrawal tax.
Victim trusted app because it was on Play Store
The victim then filed a complaint and stated that as the application was available on Google Play Store, he trusted that it would be a legitimate application and made investments, but lost the amount, a senior police official told PTI.
The complainant told police that he believed the application was legitimate because it was available on the Google Play Store.
Based on the complaint, police registered a case on charges of negligence and named Google India’s nodal officer as one of the accused, a senior police official said. There was no immediate response from Google to the latest development.
Similar cases registered earlier
The case comes after the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police recently named the “Head of Google in India” as a co-accused in three other cyber fraud cases.
In those cases, complainants alleged that fraudsters promised high returns and persuaded them to download fraudulent investment applications from the Google Play Store.
The victims said they considered the applications genuine and trustworthy because they were listed on the platform.
Police registered the three cases under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act against the alleged fraudsters and the Google India executive.
Google had said on July 22 that it launched an immediate investigation after being alerted about the cases. The company said only one of the applications cited in the complaints was available on the Play Store and that it complied with Google’s financial services policy.