Online gambling led to woman’s unnatural death, finds Crime Branch
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The Crime Branch investigation conducted into the unnatural death of a 26-year-old woman from Koyilandy has brought to light her involvement in an online lottery game by spending nearly ₹1.75 crore. The surprising investigation report revealed that the young woman, who was addicted to the game, even pawned her 36 sovereigns of gold ornaments without the knowledge of her family.
The investigation was carried out into the incident after her family members and the local action committee expressed doubts over the reason behind the death. In the initial phase, financial transactions of ₹80 lakh she carried out using Unified Payment Interfaces (UPI) applications were the main reason for suspicion. There were also suspicions that the woman was exploited by unknown money lenders.
It was on December 12, 2021, that the woman, who was working in the store of a private telecom company, was found dead in her house. The details of suspected financial transactions came to light very recently. Her family members were ignorant of such financial deals as no friends or colleagues had approached her with such requirements. She was also not working with the accounts department of any multinational companies, enabling her to carry out such huge transactions.
According to police sources, the woman had not revealed anything to the family members or friends about the huge financial transactions she had carried out using her two personal bank accounts. Since UPI applications were used for the fund transfers, it was very difficult to track the details of the senders and receivers in the first phase, they said.
The Crime Branch team found that the woman got addicted to online gambling nearly two years ago. All the major transactions took place 12 months before her death. She was reportedly excited by the small rewards she received in the first round of games. Later, she kept losing money and borrowing it from various online e-money lenders to continue with the gambling.
