Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A new modus operandi adopted by cyber crooks has left local cyber crime officials scratching their heads. In last 15 days, four incidents were reported in which several people from different parts of the country fell prey to cyber crooks and lost hefty amounts. The amounts siphoned off by cyber crooks have landed into the bank accounts of four different persons in Bhopal, cyber wing officials said.
The total amount deposited into the bank accounts of local residents is close to Rs 12 lakh. After the incidents came to light, the cyber cell had summoned the people into whose bank accounts the money had landed but found no wrong committed by them.
A recent incident was reported from MP Nagar where a private bank employee received Rs 3 lakh in his account. Next day, the cyber officials received a call from Mumbai police, stating that a man residing in Mumbai had lost Rs 3 lakh to a cyber crook on the pretext of Know Your Customer (KYC) process and the bank account to which the money was transferred belonged to a man residing in MP Nagar in Bhopal. When the cyber cops summoned the man, he refuted being involved in any such cyber crime. The police checked his background and found him innocent.
A similar such case was reported from Piplani where a woman received Rs 5 lakh into her bank account, which belonged to a farmer based in Punjab. An unidentified cyber crook posed as a kin of farmer and sought Rs 5 lakh from him stating that he was caught up in a criminal activity and needed money to settle the issue. The farmer gave him the money but later learnt that he had been fooled. The woman did not know the source of money. Her background check too did not yield any result.
Most incidents involve KYC, OTP frauds: DCP
Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Shrutkirti Somwanshi told Free Press that a majority of incidents involved OTP and KYC-based frauds. He added that in some cases, the crooks ask for a poor person’s bank account to park the siphoned-off money there for some time and offer him a handsome amount in return. In other cases, people receive money from nowhere and are clueless about the source from where it was transferred.
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