An Assistant Director rank official of Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (IB) has become a victim of cyber fraud. The victim had received a call from a man claiming to be from a nationalized bank. The accused told the victim that his credit card is going to be changed and a new card will be provided. The victim was then induced in sharing his existing card details and Rs 98000 were siphoned using his card information. Naupada police in Thane is probing the case.
According to the police, the 58-year-old complainant Atul Tembe works at the IB office at Bandra-Kurla Complex. As per the victim, on December 02 he had gone to Solapur for some official work and in the afternoon he had received a phone call from a person who identified himself as Dinesh Mehra, an employee of a nationalized bank. Since the victim was busy, he disconnected the call. The next day, the victim again received a phone call from Mehra. Again he was busy taking darshan at a temple in Pandharpur.
"Again next time he gave a call and this time Mehra informed the victim that as per RBI's new guidelines, the bank is changing credit cards of all the customers. Mehra then told the victim details of his new card and its validity till 2027. Mehra then told the victim to write down the request ID number and told him that he would receive a confirmation call from the bank and that he needs to share the request ID with the person," said a police officer.
He added, "The accused meanwhile induced the victim to share his existing card details and induced him to share the OTP which came on his phone and managed to siphon Rs 98,721 using his card information. The victim then realized that this could be a fraud and communicated about the fraudulent transaction with his bank. When the complainant asked about the transaction, Mehra said it was an online portal of the company. They are increasing the credit limit of the card and the card is issued to them," he added in the statement to police.
Atul who found a foul play approached the police to get a complaint lodged in this regard.
The police have registered a case under sections 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66C (punishment for identity theft) and 66D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resources) of the Information Technology Act.
Sanjay Dhumal, senior police inspector, Naupada police station confirmed about a case being registered and said, "Further investigation is going on. We are scrutinizing the call details and transaction to reach the accused involved in the crime," added Dhumal.
