Mumbai: Software Engineer Loses ₹27 Lakh To Scammers In Drugs-In-Parcel Fraud

A 27-year-old software engineer woman has fallen prey to scammers in the drugs-in-parcel fraud and lost over Rs 27.20 lakh. The scammers had also induced the victim to take a pre-approved loan from her banking app and disburse the same to a beneficiary bank account.

According to the police, the victim is a resident of Thane. On September 12, the victim received a system generated phone call on answering the call, the victim spoke to a person who claimed that a parcel belonging to her containing two passports, three credit cards and other unauthorised items had been intercepted.

The victim told the caller that no such parcel belonged to her after which she received call from another person claiming to be an officer from cyber cell and on the pretext of verifying if the parcel belonged to the victim or not the scammer inquired with the victim about her bank account details, bank balance and Aadhar card.

The scammer then asked the victim to open her bank's mobile app and inquired about the pre-approved loan availability in it. The scammer then asked the victim to get the loan of Rs 20 lakh disbursed in her account and then induced her to transfer the said amount in another bank account provided by him and also managed to get Rs 7.20 lakh transferred from her bank account.

The scammers had told the victim that she would get her money back once the verification of her transactions is done and she would also receive a police clearance certificate. However, later the accused persons stopped communicating with the victim after which she realised that she had been duped.

She then approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter last week. A case has been registered by the police under sections  66C (identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act, police said.