Mumbai: Three held for extorting money online from doctors, shopkeepers by posing as BMC officials

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The Mumbai police have arrested three persons for allegedly extorting money online from prominent doctors and shop owners by posing as civic officials and threatening to initiate action against them for installing name boards outside their establishment without permission, police told news agency PTI on Wednesday.

The Bandra unit of the crime branch had received specific information that a gang of fake Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials was active, an official told PTI.

Offences in this connection were registered at the police stations in Bandra and Khar against unidentified persons, he said.

"After conducting a probe, the crime branch arrested the three accused," he said, adding that they were found to be involved in similar cases in the past as well.

Earlier, a fraudster posing as an executive of the mobile payment service Google Pay allegedly cheated a 65-year-old man of Rs 4 lakh in Nagpur, city police told PTI on Tuesday.

Surendra Borha, a resident of Rana Pratap Nagar, mistakenly paid Rs 2,500 instead of Rs 1,200 for the medicines he had ordered online, an official told PTI.

Realizing the error, he searched online for the Google Pay customer service number.

On June 10, he received a call from an individual claiming to be an executive of Google Pay customer service.

Believing him, Borha shared his bank details as instructed and downloaded the AnyDesk app on his mobile phone.

To his horror, he found that Rs 4 lakh had been transferred from his account to a stranger's account without his authorisation.

Cyber police has registered a case and further probe is on, the official said.

(With inputs from PTI)