Online scamster swindled a Bangalore based woman lawyer of Rs 15 lakhs in the latest case of cyber fraud posing as police officials holding her hostage on a video call and forcing to strip for “narco test” and threatened to pay ransom.
The cyber frauds extorted Rs 14.57 lakhs from the victim in 36 hours of “digital arrest” on popular video calling mobile app Skype last Wednesday to monitor all her movements under the pretext of probing a FedEx narcotics parcel for Thailand traced to her.
“FedEx does not request personal information through unsolicited phone calls, mail, or email for goods being shipped or held, unless requested or initiated by customers,"FedEx said in a statement responding to the latest scam of cyber fraudster holding the victim hostage on video call for over 36 hours.
The cyber criminals first called the victim alleging that a FedEx parcel booked by her to Thailand was intercepted by the police for narcotics trafficking with five passports, three credit cards and 140 tablets of the banned MDMA synthetic drugs in the international courier.
Narrating her ordeal, the victim said she was ordered to transfer Rs 10.79 lakhs to designated account by the alleged CBI officer for verification of her bank accounts and later forced to permit authorisation of another Rs 3.77 lakhs online shopping on her credit card.
“I was informed that my Aadhaar card was on high alert for human trafficking and drugs. The officers asked me to join a Skype call for questioning and kept grilling me about my bank account details, existing balance, annual CTC, monthly income and investments. I was forced to take an oath not to disclose any details with anyone until the investigation was completed,” said the 29 year old victim.
According to the First Information Report registered at the East CEN police, Banglore, the victim was threatened of arrest for drug running, human trafficking, money laundering and identity theft by the fraudster claiming to be Mumbai Police officer and asked to download popular mobile video call app Skype for further questioning by CBI.
The scamster was joined on video call by another imposter CBI officer Abhishek Chauhan coercing the lawyer to share sensitive financial information and insisting to maintain secrecy to investigate the involvement of top politicians and bureaucrats in the criminal racket.
“The scamster exploited her vulnerability and further forced her to strip for “narco test” on video call which was recorded to blackmail the victim for ransom,” confirmed a senior Banglore Police Cyber Crime official.
The fraudster further demanded another Rs 10 lakhs and threatened to post her nude video on social media.
“The fraudster attempted to get $5000 of bitcoins on her credit card but the transactions were declined so the victim was asked to increase her usage limit and authorise further transactions on her cards,” added the cyber crime official.
The online crooks asked her to remain on video call and share her phone's screen so she could be monitored. The imposter CBI officer after cleaning the victims banks account and exhausting all her credit card limits asked the lawyer to strip for narco test. She was abused and threatened of arrest to strip on camera and later blackmailed for another Rs 10 lakhs when the exhausted victim suffering 36 of online ordeal approached the police for help and a case was registered.
