Mumbai: Former journalist loses mutual funds investment of Rs 3.99 lakhs to online fraudsters

A 65-year-old senior citizen and former journalist from South Mumbai lost Rs 3.99 lakhs to online fraudsters. Now a faculty teacher for journalism students claims he withdrew Rs 4 lakhs from Mutual funds investment for repair of his South Mumbai house.

The police said the complainant is identified as Shridar Naik 65, a south Mumbai resident. A former journalist who is now a teacher for students of journalism. Naik in his statement to police said on February 4, in the afternoon he received a message informing, 'Your phone is blocked as KYC is not updated, please contact on this number'. "I contacted the mobile number, when the caller presenting himself as Rahul claimed to be a tele-caller from the Airtel company. I asked him to update the KYC. He then asked me to upload the Airtel-HDFC app to the playstore. And further took details bank account, debit card, CVV number and one time password to update the KYC. He then asked me to send Rs 10 on his UPI id of an account," he added.

Naik said on February 5, at night 11:45 pm he received a message about an amount being debited from his account. "I checked the status to find 2,99, 500 debited from my account in different installments. I immediately blocked my account. But the next day again Rs 1 lakh was debited to pay some credit card bill in two installments. I again contacted the bank who assured me about blocking their account again," he said.

Naik then approached the Marine drive police and registered a case under section 419 and 420 of the Indian penal code and relevant section of the Information Technology Act.

Naik who is hardly earning these days claimed that he recently withdrew Rs 4 lakh from his mutual funds investment. "I got the amount credited in my account on Friday , which was for the renovation of my flat," he added.

Naik claimed that the police are are yet to start the ivestigation.

A senior official from marine drive police station confirmed that a case has been registered and investigation is going on.