Mumbai News: Senior Citizen Falls Prey To Courier Fraud, Loses ₹50 Lakh

A 63-year-old man has fallen prey to scammers and has lost Rs50.70 lakh in a courier scam. He was induced by fake cyber cops to transfer money from his bank account to other beneficiary accounts for verification purposes.

According to the police, the complainant, a resident of Thane, received a call from an unknown caller introducing himself as an employee of a courier company on July 3, 2024. He was told that his parcel contained unauthorised items and it had been returned to the courier company. The caller said that he is transferring the call to Mumbai Cyber Crime. Thereafter, a person posing as a cyber crime inspector from Mumbai spoke with the complainant over a video call.

The scammer then took information from the complainant of his bank accounts and after receiving the information, the complainant was told that the money in his bank account should be transferred to the RBI’s safety locker and after a few days until the verification was done, he would get his money credited in his bank account.

The complainant transferred the money in three online transactions. Later, when the complainant did not receive his money, he tried contacting the scammers. After repeated attempts when he could not get in touch with them, he realised he had been duped and approached the police to get an offence registered.

A case has been registered by the police under sections 318 (cheating), 319 (cheating by personation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and sections 66C (identity theft), 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.