Hyderabad boy loses Rs 36 lakh on mobile games

Earlier, a 13-year-old girl in China emptied her mother's bank account by spending Rs 52 lakhs on a mobile game. Now another minor from India has done something similar to play online games.

A 16-year-old boy, a resident of the Amberpet area of Hyderabad, emptied his mother's bank account for a game. The woman lost around Rs 36 lakhs because her son wanted to continue playing online games on the mobile phone.

According to details provided by the Hyderabad Police Cyber Crime Wing, the boy first downloaded the popular Free Fire gaming app on his grandfather's mobile phone. This is a free game, but the boy started to spend some amount as he progressed through the game. First, he spent 1,500 rupees from his mother's account and then 10,000 to play.

Over time, he got addicted to the game because the money it gave him enhanced it with upgrades to skills and weapons. This addiction led him to spend a lot of money without the knowledge of family members, according to an IANS report.

He kept making payments from Rs 1.45 lakh to Rs 2 lakh in the Free Fire game. Later, when the boy's mother visited the State Bank of India (SBI) to withdraw some money, she was surprised to see no money left in her bank account. The bank officials told him that she spent Rs 27 lakh from her account, which is not the only bank account. She discovered that her son also spent money using her HDFC bank. The boy had withdrawn Rs 9 lakh from this bank account. Therefore, the total cash he lost is Rs 36 lakh.

The woman then reported the problem to the cybercrime police station. The boy was a student in class 11 and the son of a deceased police officer. She told a police officer that it was her late husband's hard-earned money that she lost only because of a game and was also part of the monetary benefit she received after the officer's death.