Mumbai: Financial firm staffer saves leading enterprise from cyber fraud

The financial company that received the fraudster’s email had not transferred the loan amount to the Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s subsidiary. Representation pic

A leading conglomerate firm was recently saved from cyber fraud, which could have caused it losses in crores of rupees, and also stopped its ongoing project for the Uttar Pradesh government, thanks to an alert employee from a financial company. The Shapoorji Pallonji Group filed a complaint with Colaba police on Sunday alleging that an unknown person created a fake email ID of the company, and stole some confidential documents.

The complaint further said that the person forwarded the documents to a financial company that recently sanctioned a loan of Rs 115 crore to the group's subsidiary, Kanpur River Management Pvt. Ltd, which is building a sewage water treatment plant in Uttar Pradesh for the government. As per the complaint filed at the Colaba police station, to complete the project on time, the company had discussed a loan of Rs 115 crore from PTC Indian Financial Services, and it had been sanctioned, but the amount had not been credited.

Phone about suspect email

"On January 10, our general manager of finance received a call from PTC India Financial Services, indicating that someone had probably created a fake email ID of our company and sent an email to their parent company with some confidential details and documents. The person from PTC then forwarded the same email to us, and we found it had nothing to do with our company," the complainant, who is employed by Kanpur River Management Pvt Ltd, told police.

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Email spoofing cyber fraud

According to the police, this is a type of email spoofing cyber fraud, where cons create fake accounts of companies and dupe them of crores. Luckily in this case, the company employees managed to foil this. "Generally in such cases, the fraudsters have details about ongoing transactions between two companies, and they create a false email ID of one company and use it to communicate with the other, requesting the payment in their alternative accounts due to some technical reason. Many have fallen prey to the scam," an officer of the Mumbai police said. "A case has been registered under various Sections of IPC and IT Act and further investigations are underway," said Vijay Hatiskar, Sr PI Colaba police station. The complainant did not respond to messages and calls.