Mumbai: Woman loses nearly Rs 4 lakh to online scam

The victim was told her account generated Rs 47 lakh crypto currency. Representation pic

A 29-year-old assistant vice-president of a bank, became the latest victim of an online scam, losing Rs 3.93 lakh after falling for the lure of claiming Rs 47 lakh crypto currency in her account. The Vanrai police has registered a case under various sections of the IPC including the IT Act.

As per the statement given to the police, last year, in the month of December, the complainant received a call from a person who posed as an official of an international courier service company and informed her that she had sent a parcel to Taiwan and it was found that it contained drugs (MD) and it had been seized at the airport. As she had not sent any parcel she lodged a complaint on the cyber crime portal.

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On April 24, at 4 pm, she received a call from a person from the same courier company saying she had sent a parcel to Taiwan and the parcel contained a laptop, bank documents, passport and 116 gm of a drug (MD). The caller then connected the call to one Ajaykumar Bansal saying he was an officer with the Cyber Crime division at Andheri. "Bansal told her if she wanted to lodge a complaint she could call him via Skype and shared the Skype ID. He inquired how many bank accounts she had," a police officer said.

The victim informed him about two of her bank accounts, and the caller informed her that one of her accounts had generated Rs 47 lakh crypto currency. If she wanted this money, she was told she had to transfer Rs 98,326 to four accounts. The caller then made her talk to one George Mathew, an ‘officer' of RBI. Believing everything the complainant transferred Rs 98,326 (total Rs 3.93 lakh) from four bank accounts including her friend's and a relative's," the officer added. "The fraudster also asked her to send her passport size photo and address to generate a new Aadhaar card for the transfer of the Rs 47 lakh crypto currency to her account. After that when she failed to get a response from the caller, she approached Vanrai police station," said an officer from Vanrai police station.