Mumbai Crime: Cyber expert falls for Facebook friend’s plot, loses Rs 12 lakh

The FB friend had claimed that he worked for a bank in Dubai. Representation pic

A 35-year-old cyber expert lost Rs 12 lakh to a Facebook friend who lured him with the promise of a fortune. While he suspected the other person at every step and even consulted his lawyer friends and a CA, he was told that the process was genuine. The complainant then himself dug deep to establish that he had been conned and filed a police complaint.

The Bandra resident, who works for a software company and has had association with the police over cybersecurity, used to chat with a Facebook friend since 2018. The friend claimed that he worked as a manager of a bank in Dubai.

The complainant told the police that the fraud started after he casually mentioned to the friend he was keen to take up a job in Dubai. The friend promised to help and told him that he had a better plan to make a lot of money. He said one of his customers with Rs 200 crore in his account had died without an heir. He convinced the complainant that the money could be transferred to him legally and they could split it later.

The complainant agreed to pay Rs 2 lakh as the initial fee. He then got several documents through email. A few months on, the complainant showed copies of the documents and emails to his lawyer friends who confirmed it was the right process. By 2019, he had shelled out Rs 12 lakh for processing the papers.

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Since the money was nowhere in sight, the complainant approached a friend, a chartered accountant, who too didn't find anything was wrong.

Later, the complainant consulted another lawyer friend to draft a complaint letter. However, greed got the better of her and she began communicating with the complainant's FB friend and paid about Rs 1.5 lakh, believing the process was legal.

By this time, the complainant was in no mood to pay more. He used his knowledge to track down the FB friend and found in 2020 that he had fallen prey to Nigerians operating from Delhi, Dubai and Turkey.

The money paid by him had been routed to accounts in north-eastern states. The man, who filed a complaint with the BKC cyber police on July 25, said it could not be done earlier due to the pandemic. He claimed the Dubai police worked on his inputs to uncover massive scams. He told the police that he had also alerted law-enforcement authorities in Turkey.

"We have registered a case under Sections 419 and 420 of IPC and under the IT Act," said an officer from BKC police station.