In Bengaluru, conmen threaten to frame woman in case, extort Rs 11 lakh

BENGALURU: A 42-year-old accountant with a private firm allegedly lost around Rs 11 lakh to a gang of cybercriminals who projected themselves as representatives of a courier firm and crime branch police from Mumbai.
East CEN Crime police registered a case against the unknown persons based on a complaint filed by Vinutha (name changed) from Kaggadasapura, east Bengaluru. City police said they have received at least a dozen such complaints this month alone.
On February 14, Vinutha received a call from a person who introduced himself as a representative of a courier firm and told her that a parcel booked in her name using her Aadhaar details was confiscated at the office in Mumbai.
The same day, she got calls from multiple persons claiming they are from Mumbai crime branch police. They told her someone was trying to open a bank account using her Aadhaar card illegally. The account was meant for committing cybercrime and they would arrest her for that.
Vinutha told them she had not given her Aadhaar card to anyone and was not aware of the opening of the bank account. The miscreants threatened her and asked her to provide her bank account details for investigation. Scared about police action and to prove her innocence, she shared details of her two accounts.
To her shock, within a few hours, the miscreants siphoned off Rs 10 lakh from one account and Rs 98,132 from another. Police registered a case under sections 66C (punishment for identity theft) and 66d (cheating by personation by using computer resources) under Information Technology Act-2000.
According to police, more than a dozen cases have been registered in February by people who had lost money to cybercriminals who created fear by threatening to lodge criminal cases against them. In all cases, the miscreants had contacted the victims by claiming to be courier firm employees.
Later, they had informed them about parcels in their names containing illegal items or huge quantities of money. The gang had threatened the victims that they would inform law enforcement agencies and demand money to prevent them from being booked. Police have requested the public not to heed to such threats and give money to unknown persons.