President of a premier management institute duped of Rs1.15 crore by online scamsters

Ahmedabad: The president and director of a premier management and communication institute in Ahmedabad has become the latest victim of a well-organised cyber crime, who lost over Rs 1 crore.

He was tricked on the pretext that a courier package, containing narcotics, in his name was intercepted by the customs department at Mumbai airport. 

This has been a unique modus operandi of cyber fraudsters who have duped many people across the country.  According to the FIR, the cyber fraudsters identified themselves as officers of CBI and Mumbai Cyber Crime and held the senior academician under duress citing drugs and money laundering cases and coaxed him to transfer Rs1.15 crore through RTGS in two accounts of Punjab National Bank opened in the name of Quality Fruit Traders and Shivam Charitable Trust.

The FIR, registered on Friday, mentions how the 64-year-old senior academician was contacted on March 20 during office hours by a person named Jason claiming to be from "FedEx Courier" firm. The caller had the victim's Aadhar number and full name and told him that a parcel in his name was on its way to Taiwan which was intercepted by the customs department at Mumbai airport. 

The caller told the victim that the parcel contained a laptop, 5 kg clothes and 200 grams of MDMA, a banned narcotic drug. The fraudster told that as it was a serious offence he was verifying whether he actually had sent the consignment or not.

The caller connected him to a fake Mumbai Cyber Cell officer identified as Prakash saying that a politician Nawab Malik, who is in jail on charges of money laundering and terror financing cases, had opened over 400 fake bank accounts, which had names of many prestigious persons. He was told that the list included his name as well with three bank accounts opened in Goa, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

The victim told the fake officer that he would get back after talking to his secretary, but he was warned against this and said that it was confidential information and there was suspicion that his phone was also being tapped. Later, the academician was given a Skype ID for private talks. He was also warned how in the past a person lost his son's life for not cooperating with the investigation. 

He was told to go home from the office and keep the phone on. Later, he was instructed to keep the phone on and charged throughout the night since an officer from Cyber Cell would talk to him in the morning.

The next morning, on March 21, a person identifying himself as Bal Singh Rajput from Mumbai Cyber Crime contacted the victim and told him that he would be sent a warrant after court's permission and his officer George Mathew would contact with the warrant.

An hour later, FIR says, the victim was informed that the warrant had been issued. They shared a fake warrant issued in the name and with logo of Central Bureau of Investigation-India through Skype. The fake officer Mathew told the academician that a lot of transactions had happened using his ICICI bank account which was not reflected in his account but could be seen in the RBI server.

Rajput made him talk to his fake superior officer who ultimately coaxed the victim to deposit money in two accounts to check every transaction history on RBI server. He was assured that the money would be returned in 15 minutes. 

The victim transferred Rs1.15 crore accordingly using RTGS but he never received the money from the bank. After releasing the fraud, he approached the police. Police sources said that the bank accounts have been frozen, which still had Rs15 lakh. FIR has been registered against unidentified persons for cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and sections of IT acts. 

"FedEx does not request personal information through unsolicited phone calls, mail, or email for goods being shipped or held, unless requested or initiated by customers. If any individual receives any suspicious phone calls or messages, they are advised not to provide their personal information. Instead, they should immediately contact the local law enforcement authorities within the vicinity or report to the cybercrime department of the government of India," the courier firm said in a media statement.