Caller posing as Mumbai cop strikes again, forces techie to transfer Rs 25.6 lakh with drugs case threat

PUNE: A caller posing as a senior Mumbai police officer compelled a software engineer from Kothrud transfer Rs25.61 lakh to two different bank accounts on Tuesday after threatening her of prosecution in a drugs courier case.
This was the fourth case of its kind over the last three weeks. Two of them, including that of Tuesday, were reported from Pune and the other two from Pimpri Chinchwad.
In all these cases, the caller used the name of a particular IPS officer to cheat the victims. Neither the Pune police nor their Pimpri Chinchwad counterparts have achieved any breakthrough yet.
Deputy commissioner of police (cyber) Shrinivas Ghadge said, "We have established the identity of the two men, one of whom poses as the police officer. We are working on certain clues and hope to arrest them soon."
Ghadge refused to divulge more details citing that the investigations were in progress.
Senior inspector Meenal Patil of the cyber police said on Friday, "The Kothrud techie got a call around 10am on Tuesday from a man informing her that the Mumbai police had seized a courier meant for Taiwan, with her name as the sender, and found 140g drugs in it. The caller then connected her to a man, who claimed to be a senior officer from the Andheri police and told her that she could be arrested. The officer called her using a VoIP telecommunication application and told her to transfer money to two accounts to avoid further action. He also threatened her against discussing the matter with anyone."
Patil said, "Under fear, the woman made the money transfers through six transactions. She became suspicious when the caller kept demanding more money. She discussed the matter with her family members and approached the cyber police. An FIR related to cheating and personation, and under the IT Act provisions was lodged."
The senior police inspector said, "The caller, who claims to be a police officer, has used different bank account numbers in the four cases to get the victims to transfer huge amounts. We are conducting technical investigations to make a breakthrough in the two cases lodged in Pune."
Patil appealed to the public not to fall prey to such calls and contact the city police control room and the Andheri police to verify the caller's credentials.
In the two cases lodged with the Pimpri Chinchwad police, its officers said the identity of the two men in both the cases was the same but their whereabouts could not be ascertained.