In a first, police help recover ₹98L from cyber crook

Bhubaneswar: The state crime branch has for the first time successfully blocked a fraudulent banking transaction of around Rs 98 lakh made by a company from Khurda district to the account of an alleged cyber crook in USA and retrieved the whole amount.
A chemical company at Sarua in Khurda district lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police station of crime branch on April 21, saying that they carry out regular business and financial transactions with a Singapore-based company, whose account exists with the bank in the US.
The chemical firm has been procuring raw materials from the Singaporean company with the help of an Indian mediator, identified as Ajay Dwivedi, who lives in Delhi.
Recently, the chemical firm had placed a purchase order with the Singaporean company. On April 21, the chemical company received a mail from Ajay Dwivedi, who asked them to transfer $1,19,040 to an account in the US bank to receive the raw materials. The company immediately transferred the money and called up Dwivedi to verify from the Singapore company whether they received the amount.
Officials of the Khurda company received a jolt when Dwivedi denied having sent any email. Dwivedi further checked with the Singaporean company and found that no money was received by them from the Khurda firm. When the Khurda company checked the sender’s email ID, they found that it was slightly different from the original email address of Dwivedi, investigating officer Anila Anand said.
Realising that they had fallen victim to cyber crime, they immediately lodged a complaint with the crime branch. Anila said she and her team immediately contacted the international bank’s correspondent bank (authorised dealing branch) in India and got the fraudulent transaction stopped. She said it was a Herculean task to contact and convince the international bank via several banking protocols.
“We were relieved when the bank reversed the entire money today (Wednesday), within five days. Timely complaint by the victim helped us recover the money,” she said. The crime branch said efforts are on to identify the cyber crook.