In the age of social media, digital frauds have become commonplace. It’s not only the ones who are not educated who fall prey to these people. Oftentimes, well-educated and computer literate people are falling prey to this kind of malicious practice. Recently a 38-year-old woman from the Kondhwa Budruk area lost a handsome amount of money to these fraudsters.
Pune woman lost Rs. 33 lakhs to online fraud
Recently in Pune, a 38-year-old woman lodged a complaint against a man who befriended her on a social networking site and then duped her of Rs 33.35 lakh. The Kondhwa police have launched an investigation against the accused. The accused had cheated the woman by promising to send her foreign currency as a gift. Notably, even though the complaint was launched recently, the incident took place between March and July 2020.
According to her complaint, the woman noted that the suspect promised to send her a gift comprising UK pound sterling. She had received a friend request from the man who claimed to be a UK-based businessman. Once the concerned person got friendly with her, he told her about his wish to invest in India.
Without knowing his bad intentions, the lady invited him to visit India. While entering the country the man claimed to have been detained by customs officials at the Delhi airport. As the same time the “virtual friend” was carrying a significant amount in foreign currency (pound sterling) as a gift which was seized at the airport.
After that, the woman received a call from a woman who claimed to be a customs officer and threaten her with legal action. The complainant then transferred Rs 33.35 lakh to a bank account number provided by the woman pretending to be a Customs official. Once the payment was done, both (suspect and the woman pretending to be a Customs official) stopped answering her call. Then only the woman realized that she has been duped.
Case registered under various sections of IPC
A case under Sections 419 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code along with Sections 66(c), 66(D of Information Technology Act was registered at Kondhwa police station. Assistant police inspector Harshada Dagde of Kondhwa police station is investigating the case.
On the incident, senior inspector DS Hake commented, “People should be careful before accepting friend requests from strangers. They should never transfer money to strangers. ”
Incidentally, the cyber police department has received so far 171 such cases, while there were 70 such complaints in 2020.
Hence we recommend our reads to avoid accepting strangers’ friend requests. The fraudsters usually win the confidence of innocent citizens which costs them dearly.
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