Ludhiana: Elderly man duped of over Rs 8 lakh on power disconnect threat

LUDHIANA: An elderly man lost over Rs 8 lakh to cyber fraudsters, who duped him saying that his electricity connection would be cut. The accused made the man download a mobile application, which was actually a hacking app and withdrew money from his account.
A case was registered under sections 420 (Cheating) of the IPC and IT Act on the complaint of Harmel Singh, 72, a retired employee of the agriculture department.
Harmel Singh said he received a text message on September 13 saying that his payment of last month’s PSPCL bill had not been updated yet, due to which the electricity supply to his house would be snapped by the night. A contact number was also provided for further queries.
Harmel Singh called the number given and spoke to a person who claimed to be a PSPCL official. The accused asked Harmel Singh to download the ‘Any Desk’ mobile application saying that he could update his bill payment there. He downloaded the application and the accused made him upload a one time password (OTP). Immediately afterwards, he transferred Rs 8,01,977 from his account in 10 different transactions.
The victim lodged a police complaint and an enquiry was marked to Cyber Cell-II.