PUBG was recently banned in India.When a 65-year-old retired BSNL employee got a text message from his bank that only Rs 275 was left in his account in May, he immediately complained to the Timarpur police station and Cyber Cell of North district that over Rs 2 lakh had been withdrawn without his knowledge. When the case was transferred to the Cyber Cell this month, it was found that the man’s 15-year-old grandson had allegedly transferred Rs 2,34,497 from his grandfather’s pension account and splurged it on PUBG (Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds), an online game that was recently banned in India.
“The complainant said he received a message on his phone from the bank on May 8,” said DCP (North) Anto Alphonse.
Investigation revealed that Rs 2,34,497 was transferred from his debit card to a Paytm account between March 7 and May 8. “It was also found that transfers were OTP-secured and OTP was sent to the complainant’s number, but no OTP was found on his phone. We traced the Paytm account to one Pankaj Kumar (23), who said that his Paytm wallet was used by a friend, who turned out to be the complainant’s grandson,” said a senior police officer.
The 15-year-old was apprehended and he revealed that he had been playing PUBG for a few months and wanted to make in-game purchases, for which he used his grandfather’s debit card.
Police said he deleted the text messages from his grandfather’s phone.
After making the purchase, he reached ‘ace level’ rank in the game before it was banned by the Centre.