Maharashtra: Man duped of Rs 1.8 lakh by four people with phone hacking case threat

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Four persons, including two who posed as policemen, have been arrested in Maharashtra's Nagpur for allegedly extorting Rs 1.8 lakh from a man dealing in mobile phones and accessories, an official said on Monday, according to the PTI.

The police said that the suspects who have been identified as Aniket Wankhede (22) and Sachin Vaidya (22) convinced their friend Mrudul Supsande to hack into the phone of a woman known to one of the accused, the police official said, reported the PTI.

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"On June 18, suspects- Yash Tekam and Anil Jadhav arrived at Supsande's mobile phone shop along with Wankhede and Vaidya and introduced themselves as policemen. They told Supsande he was going to be arrested like Wankhede and Vaidya for hacking into a woman's phone," the official told the PTI.

"They extorted Rs 1.8 lakh from Supsande on the pretext of not taking action in the case. After he found something amiss, Supsande filed a police complaint, which led to the arrest of the four," the Dhantoli police station i Nagpur official said.

Meanwhile, in an another incident, a professor at an engineering college in Nagpur, Maharashtra, allegedly fell victim to a cyber fraud scam known as "task fraud," losing a total of Rs 37.48 lakh, according to the police.

The Mankapur police has registered a case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology (IT) Act based on the complaint filed by the professor, PTI reported.

The fraud occurred between May 8 and June 22. The professor received a message on WhatsApp from an unknown number, where the sender pretended to be an employee of a human research firm, as per the police official. The fraudster assigned the professor tasks of liking YouTube videos for rewards, and the professor accepted the offer and received some money.

Subsequently, the fraudster lured the professor into investing in cryptocurrency. Over time, the professor transferred Rs 37.48 lakh to different bank accounts as instructed by the fraudster. However, after repeated unsuccessful attempts to contact the fraudster, the professor realized she had been deceived.

The police are investigating the case and taking necessary actions to track down the cyber fraudsters involved in the scam.

(with PTI inputs)