Mumbai: Cyber-fraudsters impersonates Chairman of company on WhatsApp, induce CEO to send gift cards worth Rs 4.50 Lakh

In a case of corporate cyber fraud, the chief executive officer (CEO) of a private company in Kharghar has lodged a complaint with police, alleging that he had received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number, with a display picture (DP) of the company’s chairperson, asking him to send gift cards for an e-commerce platform, which the chairperson wanted to give some of her colleagues present at the meeting.

The victim, who assumed that the chairperson had messaged from her new number, ended up sending 45 gift cards of Rs 10,000 each, in just four hours. When the demand for more gift cards from the said unknown number wouldn’t stop, the victim checked with his office colleagues and realised he had been cheated.

According to Turbhe police, the victim, who is the CEO of a private company at Kharghar, had received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number on March 13, around 5.24pm, which had the DP and username of his company’s chairperson.

The message said the latter was in an urgent meeting and required five gift cards from an e-commerce company in one hour, and the said gift cards were meant to be given to the colleagues present at the ‘meeting’. By 9.30pm, the victim had purchased and sent 45 gift cards of Rs 10,000 each to the WhatsApp number which the victim had believed was that of the chairman.

“When another request to send 20 more gift cards was made to the victim, he suspected foul play and on verifying with one of his colleagues whether the chairperson was having a meeting, he learnt that there was no such event happening and that he could have been duped. The victim immediately contacted the e-commerce company and requested that the gift cards be blocked. While 20 gift cards were successfully blocked, the remaining 25 were misused by two persons, identified as Aman and Shiva Mahapatra. The victim then approached police and got a criminal offence lodged in this regard,” said a police officer.

A case has been registered under sections 34 (common intention) and 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and section 66D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.