Fake cops dupe ex-DRDO officer of 1 crore with bogus money laundering case
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Pune: Cybercrooks posing as Mumbai police officers forced a 74-year-old former Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) officer from Sinhagad Road to transfer Rs1.11 crore in the last week of May after threatening him with arrest in a bogus money laundering case.
The money went to five different bank accounts before the victim realised the con and approached the police. Senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of cyber police said, "The victim stated in his complaint that the crooks called him and identified themselves as officers from Colaba police station in Mumbai. They claimed that his personal and banking credentials, and Aadhaar card details were used in money laundering transactions by an 'aviation company owner' and to clear his name, he must cooperate by giving them his bank details and making the money transfers for verification.
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The officer said, "The crooks made a video call using a messaging application, and the victim spoke to the fraudsters. They were wearing 'police uniforms', and the background had the logo of Mumbai Police."
Shinde said. "The fraudsters claimed that they found a large number of illegal transactions on the victim's bank account. They then sought detailed statements of the accounts. The victim gave the statements to them on the messaging application."
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She said, "The suspects kept on threatening to arrest the victim until June 1 and later, they promised to help him in the case by not arresting him. They also said they would arrest him and it would bring defamation to the family, if the money was not paid to them. They demanded money in exchange for the help they offered him. They shared details of five different bank accounts, and the victim transferred the money to those.
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Shinde said, "The victim exhausted all his savings, withdrew his fixed deposits (FD) and transferred the money to the five bank accounts of the suspects. The suspects had stated that they would return the money to the victim in a day or two. The victim dialled the phone numbers of the suspects, but they were switched off. He then realised that he was cheated."
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