Mumbai Crime: Teenager tries to help stray dogs, loses almost Rs 37,000

The contact details of the NGO on the search engine

Trying to help a stray dog and her puppies cost a teenager almost Rs 37,000. The girl fell victim to an online fraud, when an 'official' from the NGO her brother contacted to help the dogs, asked him to pay R10 to register first. She has written to the police seeking action in the matter. According to police, second year BMM student, Raksha Agarwal lost the money from her bank account on Monday. Agarwal, a resident of Nallasopara, saw several stray dogs trouble another one which had puppies, near her house. She and her 16-year-old brother, Rahul, were moved as they saw the puppies were being bitten and harassed by other dogs while the mother could not do much.

"My brother and one of his friends called a search engine from my phone and found an Andheri West-based animal welfare NGO, Karuna for Animals in Distress's, contact number. Rahul called the number and the person at the other end said they would help the strays but first he would have to register Rahul with the NGO. He said he would have to pay a Rs 10-fee, and asked him to pay the amount through Google Pay. The man also instructed Rahul on how to pay the amount, sending him a link which he had to click. But a couple of minutes later, I started receiving messages of withdrawal from my bank account. In just three minutes R36,997 was withdrawn and only Rs 443 was left," said Agarwal.

Agarwal informed the bank and also gave a written complaint to the Tulinj police.

The founder of the NGO, Arvindbhai Shah, said the name and the address on the search engine's site are correct but the contact number given was different. "Someone hacked the search engine's website and changed the NGO's contact number. I am going to register a complaint with the police," he said. "I also run an NGO, Karuna Trust, Virar, for animal welfare. Online scams continue in the name of animal welfare in different states like Delhi and Haryana. Now it has happened in Mumbai. Animal welfare organisations are registered with search engines and hackers keep the profile of the NGO intact but change the contact information. A couple of weeks back a person from Powai was cheated this way," said Mitesh Jain, the Honorary District Animal Welfare Officer, Mumbai.

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