The day began on a usual note for retired IRS officer Mr. Vinod Kumar Tripathi. However, something extraordinary happened that disrupted his normal routine. As he went about his mundane tasks, he started receiving frantic messages from several of his friends, inquiring about his well-being and asking if he really needed financial support. 

At first, he ignored these messages, but soon he came to know that someone had cloned his profile and was messaging in his name to his Facebook friends and asking for money. He immediately reported the profile and sent a message to all his friends, warning them about the fake profile in his name. 

Since Mr. Tripathi was aware about cyber crimes, he was able to save his friends from being deceived by the imposter. But, unfortunately, this does not happen all the time. Many times, unsuspecting and gullible friends end up becoming victims of cyber frauds and scams. Every day, many people get duped by such fraudsters who use fake Facebook or other social media profiles of prominent IAS and IPS officers. 

THE PROBLEM IS ALL PERVASIVE

Just like Mr. Tripathi, many officers’ fake profiles have been created. In fact, there are officers like Rahul Kumar, an IAS officer of Bihar cadre and Krishna Prakash, an IPS officer of Maharashtra cadre, who have faced this problem multiple times till now. 

What is worrisome is that creating a fake profile is not difficult. One can take information from the original account and use the account owner’s picture. In case of senior officers, the fraudsters often use the pictures clicked during some public event. In some cases, they even go to the extent of copying the posts in the original account. 

Speaking to Indian Masterminds, IAS officer Rahul Kumar said, “I have lost count of the fake profiles that have been created in my name. Earlier, I used to report each one of them but how much energy and time can I invest in this?”

According to a media report, the cyber crime cells of Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad police together received two dozen complaints last year, in which people were cheated for amounts ranging anything between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 3 lakh by cyber criminals who used fake Facebook profiles of IAS and IPS officers.

Apart from directly asking money, the cyber fraudsters also use the accounts to con the victim into making online payment for furniture of supposedly defence personnel. In November 2023, such fraudsters had created fake Facebook profile of IPS Narsingha Bhol, Excise Commissioner and former IG of Police (CR) and IAS Amrit Ruturaj, DM of Kendrapada, Odisha. The fraudsters had send friend requests to some of the officers’ friends and media personnel and asked them to buy old furniture of some CRPF personnel. Needless to say, this was all fake.

PREVENTION IS THE ONLY CURE 

The modus operandi is not very complicated, which ironically makes it more difficult to investigate. Anyone from anywhere can create such profiles and it is not possible to report each one of them. 

Speaking to Indian Masterminds, retired IRS officer Mr. Vinod Kumar Tripathi, who is also a poet and an author said, “Civil servants are always in public eyes. It is not tough to create their fake profile. When anyone receives a friend request or any message from such a personality, they tend to trust it. The only way to not get conned by such cyber frauds is to be aware and think rationally about the intent behind the message. If possible, one can personally check with the officer.” 

IPS officer of Rajasthan cadre, Mr. Prashant Kiran, also emphasized the importance of awareness to thwart such crimes. He suggested that some preventive steps can be taken by the known personality to avoid the creation of fake profiles. 

He said, “The officers should refrain from sharing too many personal photographs and personal details. They ideally should keep their profile private and should regularly keep checking for fake profiles on prominent social media platforms. Once they find any fake profile, they should notify their connections on social media to report such fake accounts and also make them aware about identity theft.” 

Thus, it is evident that only awareness and alertness can help people guard themselves and their friends from identity theft and cyber attack.