A 25-year-old doctor has fallen prey to a gang of scammers who posed as police and CBI officials and induced the victim to pay money claiming that he was found involved in money laundering and drug dealing. The scammers had also prepared a bogus Telegram account in the name of Mumbai Police's Cyber Cell, which they used to communicate with the victim.
According to the police, the victim works at a hospital in South-Mumbai. On Monday the victim had received a call from an unknown person who informed the victim that a summons had been issued in his name from the Bombay High Court that he had done transactions of Rs 8 crores of money laundering and drug dealing.
The scammer then shared a Telegram ID having the username of Mumbai Cyber Cell and from the said account, the scammer also shared a police ID card with the victim in order to convince the victim. The accused also sent a bogus letter to the victim which stated that the victim had unauthorisedly used his documents in money laundering and drug dealing for which inquiries had to be done with the victim.
Later the victim received a video call from the said Telegram ID and the caller told the victim that he was speaking from the CBI and asked the victim to transfer money in a bank account number shared by him and was assured that once the verification of the money is done, then the said money will be refunded immediately after verification.
The victim then transferred Rs 73000 from his account in three separate transactions after which the scammer disconnected the call. The victim kept calling on the said phone but when nobody attended the call, the victim realised that he had been conned. He then approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter.
The police have registered a case under sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66C (punishment for identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.
