A government employee from Maharashtra’s Hingoli district lost nearly Rs. 2 lakh after falling victim to a cyber scam disguised as a wedding invitation sent over WhatsApp.
The incident took place when the victim received a wedding invite scheduled for August 30 from an unknown number. The message read, “Welcome. Shadi mein zarur aye (Do come to the wedding). 30/08/2025. Love is the master key that opens the gate of happiness.”
Attached to the message was what looked like a PDF wedding invite.
However, the file was not a card but an APK (Android Application Package) designed to hack into phones. Once the employee clicked on it, the fraudsters gained access to the device and siphoned off Rs. 1,90,000.
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Police have registered a complaint at the Hingoli Police Station with the cyber cell and an investigation has been initiated to track the unidentified scammer.
Such wedding invitation scams are not new. It occurred last year when people across the nation received similar attacks and lost money. The scam involves a fake WhatsApp invite, which is sent to the victim. It is embedded with APK files. When clicked or opened, these APK files let cyber-attackers to track a phone’s activity and steal personal information. It can even impersonate the victim to ask for money from his known.
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The Himachal Pradesh Cyber Police earlier issued a warning to people to stay alert to such frauds. They emphasized not to download any suspicious files from unknown senders. The officials have again reminded people of verifying the source of the sent documents.
