Gurugram woman duped of Rs 2 cr in customs fraud

Representative image. Pic/Istock

A 61-year-old woman here was allegedly duped of Rs 2 crore on the pretext of custom clearance by a man she befriended on social media, police said.
Sunita Kapagunta, in her complaint, alleged that in December 2022 she received a follow request from a person who introduced himself as a British Airways' pilot, police said.

"On December 5, he said he had a surprise package with gift items like i-phone, artificial jewellery, watch, accessories and cash and asked for my address and phone number," she said in her complaint.

The fraudster said that he would send the package to the woman if she paid him Rs 35,000. After Kapagunta paid the money, she received a call from another person posing as an airport authority official and asked to pay a penalty of Rs 1 lakh, police said.

On the fraudster's assurance of getting the penalty money back, she transferred Rs 95,000 and sometime later he again called the woman and asked me to pay another Rs 2 lakh for a certificate required for doing currency exchange from USD to INR and she again got cheated, they said

The fraudsters did not stop there, on December 9 she received an SMS from another number claiming to be from 'United Nations Anti-Terrorist Department', saying that she had to get a clearance form for the package, for which she had to pay.

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"I was forced to take a loan against all my jewellery with Muthoot Finance and scammers forced me to transfer that loan amount as well," the woman said.
Kapagunta transferred Rs 35 lakh from her account and also sold a pilot to arrange for Rs 50 lakh more. She also borrowed Rs 24.5 lakh from her relatives, police said.

"I was asked then for more money so I withdrew money from my joint bank account with my son and when my son was alerted of the withdrawal, he called me to inquire. After that it was revealed that the whole story was a scam and the scammer duped me of almost Rs 2 crore," the complainant said.

An FIR was registered against unidentified fraudsters under sections 419 (cheating by impersonation) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and section 66-D of the IT Act at cyber crime police station, Manesar on Monday and a probe is underway, said Naresh Kumar, the investigating officer.

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