In a shocking development, a retired IAS officer from Karnataka was duped of Rs. 11.5 lakhs by cybercrooks, impersonating the Mumbai Police, after they accused him of “money laundering” and “harassing women” and kept him under “digital arrest” for over three hours before extorting the amount from him.
Later, the IAS officer revealed that the fraudsters had called him via the number “9621325271” on the morning of February 28. Introducing himself as a Mumbai police officer, the charlatan convinced the officer that his sim card was being used for illegal activities, and they (the police) had registered a case at the Moulali police station of the megapolis.
When the retired bureaucrat mentioned that the SIM card did not belong to him, the fraudster retorted by saying that it was purchased using the bureaucrat’s credentials and Aadhaar card. The call was then transferred to Moulali sub-inspector Vinay Kumar Chaubey, who threatened the retired officer, saying that he would get arrested for harassing women and money-laundering unless the officer locked himself in a room and got him to download Skype and made a video call on it around noon. Here, the officer could see his callers in uniform inside what appeared to be a police station.
They then connected him to one Akash Kulhary, who pretended to be a DCP in CBI and said that they had found 240 debit cards during a raid on Naresh Goyal, founder of Jet Airways, and one of them was a bank account opened in the officer’s name using his Aadhaar.
The cyber crook then claimed a transaction worth more than Rs 2 crore was made from that account and then informed the officer that there was a hearing of the case at the Supreme Court, sending him phone links and case details. After this, the tricksters asked him to transfer some money to the Reserve Bank of India account for verification purposes pledging that they would return it. However, they made away with the sum after the officer transferred Rs. 4.1 lakh and Rs. 7.4 lakh in two transactions.
The officer then dialed the cyber helpline and informed the High Grounds Police about the fraud. It was later discovered that the accounts where the money was transferred had been opened two months ago in Mumbai. The competent authority has frozen the accounts.
