Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh): A businessman was duped of ₹4.5 lakh in a major cyber fraud after his mobile phone, which was kept on charging in a train, was stolen on Tuesday in Gwalior.
The victim, Bhupendra Singh Thakur, a resident of MH intersection in Murar, Gwalior, owns a bank recovery collection company and works for SDFC Bank. He had gone to Vaishno Devi with friends and was returning on the Shri Shakti Express from Jammu to Delhi in second AC on Sunday night.
The train was scheduled to reach Delhi at 10 am on Monday, but shortly before arrival, someone stole his phone. Soon after, the fraudsters used it to empty his bank account, causing him a loss of ₹4.5 lakh.
Unable to find the phone, Thakur planned to complain in Delhi and conitnued with his onward journey to Gwalior via Amritsar Express. After reaching Mathura, he began receiving WhatsApp messages on another mobile.
Within minutes, the thieves withdrew ₹10,000, ₹21,000 and ₹1.5 lakh from his ICICI bank account, followed by four credit card transactions of ₹51,650, ₹82,545, ₹15,000 and ₹1.2 lakh. In total, ₹4.5 lakh was taken off through seven transactions.
After reaching Gwalior on Monday evening, Thakur filed a written complaint at the GRP police station. The next day, he approached the SSP’s public hearing and requested that the case be handed over to the cyber crime cell. SSP Gwalior assured full cooperation.
CSP Nagendra Singh Sikarwar said that the accused used OTPs generated on the stolen phone to make the fraudulent withdrawals. The case is now under active investigation by the cyber cell.
