Portuguese bank refunds Rs 31 lakh

Vadodara: When he was defrauded of Rs 31 lakh a few days ago, city-based businessman Ramesh Shah, a resident of Ellora Park, thought that he literally kissed his money goodbye. However, cybercrime cell of city police helped him in getting his money back from a Portuguese bank.
According to the police, Shah had purchased raw materials from Schott, a German company, and was supposed to to deposit Rs 31 lakh in their bank account as payment. But on October 7, Shah received an email that told him that due to change in the firm’s global strategy, he will have to deposit the amount in another of their bank account. Shah failed to notice that the email was slightly different from the original id of the German firm.
The e-mail told Shah to deposit the money in Caixa Geral de Depósitos Braga’s Lisbon branch in Portugal and not in the company’s original bank account in Germany. He trusted the mail and accordingly transferred the payment from State Bank of India (SBI) account on October 8.
However, the German firm sent an email to Shah stating that they didn’t get any payment. Shah was shocked and when he inquired in the firm’s Mumbai branch, he came to know that he became a victim of fraud.
Shah then approached the cybercrime police on October 15 and cops immediately got into action and sent an email to the Portuguese bank, German branch of SBI and Lisbon police.
“The money was deposited in the Portuguese bank, but strangely the fraudsters hadn’t withdrawn it. The bank reversed the transaction and Shah got his money back,” said Hardik Makadia, ACP (cybercrime).
When asked how the fraudsters managed to get details of Shah’s transaction with Schott and his email id, Makadia said, “It is possible that someone from the company or the client’s side may be involved, or that the fraudsters may have hacked Shah’s email id.”