PRAYAGRAJ, March 2 -- Three city residents were cheated of over Rs 1 crore in separate cyber fraud incidents involving fake investment schemes and phishing scams. All three have lodged complaints with the Cyber Police, and investigations are underway. A Civil Lines-based doctor, Dr Mahesh Kumar MK, lost Rs 1,00,31,269 after being lured into a fraudulent online trading scheme. Police said the doctor befriended a woman on a matrimony website in 2025. She later persuaded him to invest in online currency and gold trading, promising high returns. In March 2025, he began trading on a website whose link kept changing. The woman allegedly guided him via Telegram, sending "buy" and "sell" instructions. Acting on her directions, he transferred money in 23 transactions from his HDFC Bank account. When he attempted to withdraw the funds, the platform blocked the transaction. Realising he had been duped, he filed a complaint at the Cyber Police Station. In another case, retired Army Captain Shashikant Mishra of Sulem Sarai was cheated of Rs 13.97 lakh. Mishra, who retired in 2023 and now works at a hospital on an outsourcing basis, received a link from a group called "New Berry Group." After clicking on it, he was contacted by two individuals identifying themselves as Rajesh Modi and Meena Joshi, who promised lucrative investment returns. In a third incident, fraudsters posing as bank officials cheated Tapas Kumar Saha of Dhussa Jhalwa of Rs 3.92 lakh. On January 5, 2026, Saha received a link from a person claiming to be a manager of Punjab National Bank. During the interaction, the fraudster obtained his bank details and OTP, following which money was withdrawn from his account.htc...