Thrissur: In a major online investment fraud, scammers have tricked investors in Kerala nearly ₹500 crore using a fake mobile application under the guise of a wind energy project. The scam involved creating a fraudulent company that claimed to have government approval and subsidies for a wind power initiative named almost similar to a real company which operates in Japan and Germany.

Using forged certificates and documents, the fraudsters developed a mobile application and promoted it through a "money chain" model. They created WhatsApp groups for each district in Kerala, targeting common citizens, especially common people from coastal regions

According to police, this is Kerala’s first scam that combined online technology with the traditional money chain structure. From February 21 onwards, the scammers began offering higher profit margins, leading to a sharp surge in investments. Although the scheme was launched a year earlier, initially a huge amount was given as profit returns to the investors. This initial payout created a false sense of trust, prompting more people to invest more. Those who brought in new investors or made high-value deposits were rewarded with cash incentives, further expanding the scheme's reach.

However, while investments could still be made, profit distribution through the app was halted from April 10.

The company notified users that the withdrawal limit has been increased from ₹1 lakh to ₹3 lakh and they would encounter technical glitches due to that and would be rectified by April 21. However, the app completely stopped working by that date.

Following this, investors launched complaints in the company’s WhatsApp account and the victims were asked to send their nude photos to get their money back. The investors soon lodged a police complaint. Through the police investigation, it was also found that the fraudsters operated similar scams in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh during the same period, focusing mainly on north India.

Based on the UPI details provided by the victims, the police were able to deactivate the fraudsters' accounts to a certain extent. These accounts had only limited funds. The perpetrators had configured the application in such a way that when their own bank accounts were deactivated, the accounts of users who had transacted through the app were also affected.