Fake Customs Official, Supervisor Email Dupe IIT Researchers Of ₹3.12 Lakh In Indore

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Two researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Indore fell prey to cyber frauds, losing a total of Rs 3.12 lakh. Simrol police registered separate cases under sections 318(4) and 319(2) of the BNS against unidentified suspects in both incidents and launched an investigation to trace the digital trails.

Fraudsters posing as customs officials dupe researcher in international parcel scam

The first incident happened on Aug 10 and involved 33-year-old researcher Sangeeta, from Odisha, who lives at IIT Simrol. She got a call from someone pretending to be an airport customs official, claiming she had an international parcel.

Since she often receives packages from abroad, she trusted the caller and sent Rs 35,999 for customs charges using PhonePe.

The fraudster then asked for more money as an endorsement fee for expensive items and later for an exchange charge, pressuring her to transfer more funds from her own account, as well as from her brother and a friend.

When the caller asked for another Rs 3.5 lakh and threatened extra fees to return the package, Sangeeta refused and realised she had been scammed out of Rs 2,82,999. She quickly reported the incident to the 1930 national cyber helpline.

Fake supervisor email scam

The second case took place on Aug 19. Researcher Buddhadev Ghosh, from Howrah, West Bengal, received a fake email from officialgroupleader102@gmail.com.

The sender pretended to be his project supervisor and urgently asked him to buy Amazon and Steam gift wallet codes. Thinking the email was real, Ghosh bought digital codes worth Rs 15,000 and sent them to the sender.

He soon got another email asking for more codes, so he sent another Rs 15,000 worth. After checking the email address more carefully, Ghosh realised it was fake and that he had lost a total of Rs 30,000 to the scammer.