The Gamdevi police has registered a case of online cheating after multiple fake Facebook (FB) profiles were created of an Income Tax joint commissioner to dupe her friends. Fortunately, the scam came to light before any of her friends were cheated.
According to the police, the scam came to light after a friend of the IT officer alerted her about two FB profiles. The friend had received a photograph of an ailing woman from the fake accounts and asked him to send Rs 15,000 on the pretext of helping her friend who had met with an accident. The IT commissioner’s friend tried to check if the FB post was genuine.
The IT officer denied sending any such messages and asked her friend not to send any money. When she checked the profile, she found photographs of her and her husband on the profiles. The officer then checked with her friends list whether anyone of them had fallen for the trick, fortunately nobody had paid,” said the police.
Following her complaint, the Gamdevi police registered an offence under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections of cheating by personation (419), cheating (420) and attempt to commit offence (511) along with section 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation using computer resources) of the Information Technology Act. We have written to FB seeking details of the FB user and the IP addresses used to create the accounts, said a police officer.
