Mumbai: A 61-year-old man, who works as a chief accountant at a private company, transferred Rs 95 lakh fund to the fraudsters who impersonated the firm director. In order to trick the senior citizen, the cheaters had used the photograph of the director as the WhatsApp display picture (DP).
According to the police, the complainant, who hails from Dhule, received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number on October 23. “My network signal is not good right now. This is my new WhatsApp. Please save it,” read the text. Upon checking the DP, the man found that it was of the director and didn't sense something amiss.
Next day, he again received a message from the same number. “I am currently in a meeting with government officials and need you to handle something. We need to pay an advance payment of Rs 95 lakh for a project,” said the message. It further read, “They require immediate transfer, can we proceed with the payment immediately? I will send you the client account details shortly and you proceed with payment.”
The fraudsters then shared the beneficiary account details, said the man, adding that he made the payment, thinking that the instructions were from his boss. On October 25 when the imposter again demanded Rs 85 lakh, the man brought this to the notice of another senior official. The cheating finally came to the fore, after which the sexagenarian approached the police and got a criminal offence registered in the matter recently.
A case has been registered under relevant sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita as well as the Information Technology Act.
