The North Region Cyber Police helped recover ₹1 lakh that a relative of a State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) constable had lost after a Cyber fraudster had duped the personnel's relative through a social media platform. The unidentified accused had created a fake Facebook profile of the SRPF personnel and contacted the relatives through messenger, posing as the policeman, requesting to write funds for an emergency. The con came to light when the fraudster had duped the victim of ₹1lakh in a series of transactions and kept demanding more.
Last week, Bhushan Pawar, a relative of the SRPF constable, Manohar Patil, had received a message via the Facebook messenger. The message was sent by a profile that belonged to Patil, wherein the sender asked Pawar to lend him some cash amid an emergency. Worried by the message, Pawar immediately called Patil, but the call went unanswered. Pawar then thought that his cousin could be in trouble and asked him in messenger how to wire the money.
The sender asked Pawar to wire ₹15,000 via UPI method and shared a bank account number. Subsequently, the sender kept asking for more money after every transaction, making six wire transfers of ₹1 lakh. When the sender kept asking for more, Pawar found something amiss and contacted Patil to enquire what was wrong, only to realise that he was being duped, said inspector Sarla Vasave of North Region Cyber police station.
Patil immediately checked the social media platform and saw a fake profile in his name. He then approached the local police, who asked him to go to the North Region Cyber police station. Normally, the regional cyber police does not interfere in online cheating of less than ₹2 lakh, they made an exception and lodged a case, following which they wrote the nodal officer of the private bank to stop the payment, added Vasave.
Within 36 hours, the entire amount of ₹1 lakh was transferred to Pawar's account as the bank had freezed the transaction. Police are now investigating the matter to trace and nab the accused.
