FPJ Cyber Secure: Woman Loses ₹9.29 L After Fake Navy Officer Tricks Victim With Gift Parcel, Extracts Funds In Customs Duty Fraud

A 27-year-old woman lost Rs9.29 lakh after accepting a friend request from an unknown person on Instagram. In her police complaint, the Dombivali resident said that she received the request on September 12 from the con who posed as a foreign-based merchant navy officer.

Details of the fraud

The complainant befriended the scammer and they even exchanged their WhatsApp numbers. After a few days, the accused asked the woman about her address on the pretext of sending a gift parcel. Next day, the con also shared a photograph of him while sending the parcel.

On October 8, the woman received a call from an unknown person claiming to be from Delhi. The caller said that the authorities have found that her consignment, which had arrived from the United Kingdom, contained 25,000 UK pounds and warned that she would be penalised for trying to get foreign currency in an illegal manner.

Case registered

The person then told the aggrieved that she can get the parcel after paying only Rs 15,500 as Customs duty. The woman did the same after which the con exacted more than Rs9 lakh from her on various pretexts while saying that paying money is the only option to avoid legal action.

A case has been registered under section 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.