A 57-year-old businessman from Malabar Hill lost Rs 2.25 lakh from his bank account within minutes in 14 transactions after a person at a bus stop, claiming to be an executive from a telecom company, talked him into a ‘lucrative’ scheme. The accused asked the victim to make a payment of Re 1 on his number for verification; no sooner was this done than money began to be debited from the victim’s bank account, police said.
According to the Marine Drive police, the complainant in the case is a cotton trader. On March 7, around 5pm, when he was waiting at a bus stop on R N Goenka Marg at Nariman Point, a man wearing a telecom company T-shirt approached him and introduced himself as an executive of that company and also showed his ID card to the trader. He told him about a lucrative scheme being offered by his company and asked for the victim’s mobile number.
“The scamster asked the victim to make an online transfer of Re 1, claiming that this was in order to verify the victim’s mobile number. Once the victim transferred the money, the accused told the victim that his number had been verified. Around 6.15pm, when the victim boarded a bus for home, he began getting transaction alerts from his bank. Within minutes, he had received 14 transaction messages on his phone and Rs 2.25 lakh were siphoned off from his bank account,” said a police officer.
The victim then approached the police and got a criminal complaint lodged in the matter. Police have registered a case on charges of cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, punishment for identity theft and punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resources under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.
“This is a rare case in which the cyber-criminal met the victim in person and siphoned off money from the latter’s bank account. It appears that the accused must have sent some phishing link to the victim in order to do so. Efforts are on to trace the suspect,” the officer said.
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