A 75-year-old man lost Rs4.42 lakh after falling prey to a fraud of friendship with women. In his complaint to the Samta Nagar police, the septuagenarian said that he received a text message from an unknown mobile number on March 23. The enticing message was about 'friendship and enjoyment'. The aggrieved called on a number provided in the message, spoke to a woman and agreed to the offer.
The woman then kept asking him to pay money and also shared photographs of seven women with him over WhatsApp. Over the period of time, the elderly man was induced to pay Rs4.42 lakh on various pretexts such as room booking charge, service charge and expenditures of the woman, who would be engaged in 'friendship'.
Cheating case registered
The complainant was also told that some of the amount would be refunded. Later, when he tried to establish contact with the woman, she did not respond. Finally, the man realised that he had been duped and lodged a police complaint on Thursday.
A case has been registered under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code as well as provisions 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.
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Mumbai police cautions citizens
According to Cyber Crime Cell under Crime Branch of Mumbai police, the most common form of online frauds are related to banks, online commerce platforms where fraudsters, posing as bank /platform officials, convince the victim to share OTP, KYC updates and sometimes send the links to be clicked to access bank accounts.“People should know that no bank or institution is authorised to demand for bank details or PIN numbers. Unfortunately, educated people are falling prey to online frauds and losing lakhs of rupees,” explained DCP Cyber Crime, Balsingh Rajput.
