Hyderabad: A middle-aged woman in the city fell victim to cybercriminals who posed as police officials and looted Rs 1.59 crore from her in a single online transaction.
The amount included deposits and insurance paid to the woman upon her husband’s recent demise. In this case, the cyber fraudsters conned her by impersonating government authorities and accusing her of being involved in narcotics trafficking.
According to the police, the woman works for a private firm and lost her husband recently following which she received an insurance payout.
In August, she received a call from a person claiming to be from a courier company and said that a parcel containing illegal drugs was shipped under her name. It was intercepted while it was being sent from Mumbai to Taiwan.
However, the woman rejected the claim of her being involved in drug trafficking and pleaded her innocence.
Nevertheless, the woman was redirected to another person, who claimed to be a Mumbai Police officer to sort the issue out. Subsequently, the fraudster claiming to be a cop started harassing her mentally.
He forced her to send her life savings to secure pre-arrest bail in the smuggling case. Left with no choice but to save herself, the woman made an RTGS transaction, as directed by the fraudsters.
She approved the transfer of Rs 1.59 crore to an account shared by them, in one go, despite the bank flagging the transaction as potentially fraudulent.
Accused arrested
In August 2023, the case was reported to the Rachakonda Cybercrime wing following which two suspects whose accounts were used in the fraud were arrested.
“An amount of Rs 20 lakh was returned to the victim after due court proceedings a few days ago,” an official of Rachakonda police told the Deccan Chronicle.
The cops traced the fraudsters’ account holder to Gujarat and arrested the holder and an associate, both of whom were found to be decoys.
Police said that the duo had supplied their bank account on a commission basis and the same was used by the kingpin to loot the victim.
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