A 71-year-old retired general manager of Bharat Petroleum has lodged a complaint with the police stating that he had been duped to the tune of Rs 12.21 lakh by the scammers in the courier fraud. The scammers falsely claimed to the victim that his Aadhar number had been misused by the criminals and on the pretext of probing the victim’s bank statement, siphoned the money from his bank account.

False Impersonation Of Law Enforcement

According to the police, the victim is a resident of Navi Mumbai. On April 10 the victim got a call from an unknown person claiming to be speaking from a courier company. The caller told the victim that his Aadhar number has been misused to do booking of some suspicious parcel. The caller then transferred the said call to another person, who claimed to be a deputy commissioner of Mumbai Police’s Crime Branch.

The scammer told the victim that his Aadhaar number has been used in Kolkata, Bangalore and Mumbai and that they have caught one Mohammad Ali in the said case. The caller who claimed to be a policeman also shared a photo identity card with the victim. The caller told the victim he will have to probe if the victim has any role in the said case, to check his finances and tax information. The caller then asked the victim to share his bank account details and its statements.

False Promise Of RBI Verification Made By The Scammer

The caller then asked the victim to share his bank account’s userID and password. The accused then siphoned Rs 12.21 lakh from his bank accounts and said that once the verification of the said funds is completed by the RBI, the money would be credited back in his bank account. However, when the money did not get credited in the victim’s account, he realised that he had been duped and approached the police to get an offence registered in the matter on Thursday.

The police have registered a case under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and  66C (identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.