Cybercriminal withdraws ₹6.97 lakh from woman’s account in Navi Mumbai

A 40-year-old woman lost ₹6.97 lakh from her bank account after a man posing as a bank official asked her for the PIN.

According to the police, the complainant Tasnim Modak lives at Nerul’s Sector 23. Her husband stays abroad.

She had taken ₹10 lakh loan for her son’s study, of which, ₹7.5 lakh was in her account.

“On May 17, she received a call from an unknown number. The caller introduced himself as the manager of her bank. He said that her debit card has been blocked for some technical reasons. He asked for her PIN to unblock the card,” said BN Awti, inspector from Nerul police station.

Modak did not suspect anything wrong and gave him all details such as PIN number, card number and account number to him.

“The culprit fraudulently transferred cash from Modak’s account to his own. But for doing that, he needed the one time password (OTP) which was sent to Modak’s mobile phone,” he said.

“Between May 17 and 23, the culprit called her 28 times for the OTPs. He took away ₹6.97 lakh from her account in 28 transactions,” Awti said.

“Modak also received the alerts on her phone after every transaction but did not suspect anything. She kept giving him the OTPs till May 23. We are still unable to understand why she kept doing that even after receiving transaction alerts,” he said.

Later, when she visited the bank to update her passbook, she was told that the amount was withdrawn from her account in online transactions. The bank officials also informed her that no manager called her to ask for her details. She registered an FIR on Friday.

“The number used by the culprit is switched off. We are trying to trace him with the help of cyber experts,” Awti said.

The police have booked the culprit under sections 420 and 170 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 66C and D of the IT Act.

“We are trying to get more details of the transactions from the bank,” said another police officer.