A 62-year-old man from Mira Road fell prey to the evil designs of cyber-criminals, who extorted Rs. 99,500 from him by posing as a police officer and YouTuber.
In his statement to the police, the complainant, who is a retired employee, said that he received a video call from an unknown number. After answering the call, he saw a man in uniform who introduced himself as an officer from the crime branch unit in Delhi.
The man-in-uniform claimed that a girl had registered a complaint against him and the video of it had gone viral on YouTube. The imposter assured to help him in removing the video through his contacts in the video sharing company.
Minutes later another person claiming to be a representative of the video sharing website called him and demanded Rs 21,500 as charges to remove the video out of which Rs 21,00 will be refunded in 24 hours.
The horrified senior citizen transferred the amount to the specified account. However, under the guise of refund, the cyber thugs siphoned off Rs 43,000 and Rs 35,000 via two Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions from his bank account.
The man lodged a complaint with the Naya Nagar police station in Mira Road, following which an offence under section 170 (impersonating a public servant), 420 (cheating), 34 (common intention) and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act-2008 was registered against the unidentified duo on 30, December (Friday).
Further investigations are underway.
