Hyderabad: Cyber criminals have now come up with a new modus operandi. They lure the public with attractive business proposals and have already defrauded many people across the state of crores.

Some cyber gangs are now attracting people through advertisements in regional language newspapers in which they offer business plans with attractive returns.

Getting attracted by such offers many victims in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have lost around Rs 3.5 crore to one fraudster alone.

The fraud was recently busted by the cyber crime teams of the CID when they arrested a person named B. Vamsi Mohan Reddy who had cheated people of Rs 3.5 crore.

What surprised the cops was that he neither had any business nor had he invested the money collected from the victims. He simply spent the money at the casinos in Goa and other countries.

Vamsi duped victims by giving advertisements on business offers in regional language newspapers. He used to invite investments of Rs 50,000 and above and offer 1% interest every day. Seeing his initial payments many trusted him and made others too join the scheme.

He uses a new phone number and a new mobile for every new victim and escapes after duping them, an official said.

Cyber cops said there are many more such frauds in the market who attract people with advertisements.

Meanwhile, the police has cautioned people to avoid all online offers and attractive transactions.

“People should never trust anybody until you see the person and have a MoU regarding the business. They should be cautious about online frauds,” said CID Cyber Crime SP Venugopal Rao.

He added that people should never believe advertisements which offer high returns for doing nothing and requested people to immediately inform the police if they come across such fraudsters.