BENGALURU: Cybercrooks, who’d invoke the name of ‘FedEx’ to threaten people that consignments in their names have drugs, are now using the name of logistics major DHL to cheat the gullible and extort money.
At least half-a-dozen such cases have been reported in the city since early Feb. Two of them reported at East CEN police station saw
fraudsters
fleecing Rs 34.5 lakh from a software engineer and Rs 9 lakh from an architect after claiming that consignments sent by DHL were addressed to them.
Mahira (name changed), 41, a resident of Diamond District on HAL Airport Road, lost Rs 34.5 lakh to fraudsters on March 17. According to her complaint, she received a call from an unknown number at 8.12am. The caller introduced himself as an executive of DHL, Mumbai and gave her details including name, Aadhaar card and mobile number.
Once Mahira confirmed her credentials, the caller told her a parcel in her name was being illegally sent to an address in Shanghai. The fraudster claimed the parcel has a laptop, 4kg of drugs and 15 passports.
The fraudster asked Mahira to be on call till she is connected to Andheri East police station, Mumbai. A person introduced himself as Rajesh Pradan, DCP, crime branch, and told Mahira he needed to interrogate her virtually before proceeding with the case and made her download Skype app. Pradan, dressed as a police officer, made a Skype video call and flashed his ID card. The background appeared to be like a police station.
Pradan later turned off the video and told her bank account, which was opened using her Aadhaar card, is being misused. Mahira panicked and told him that she was not part of any illegal activities. Pradan claimed they needed to verify her bank account, for that she needed to transfer all the balance she had to a govt notary account.
The fraudster gave her two account numbers. In the first transaction, she transferred Rs 25 lakh and to the second account, Rs 9.5 lakh.
In the other incident, Sadiq (name changed), 37, an architect from CV Raman Nagar, received a call on Feb 15 and was told the same parcel story. They got him to transfer Rs 9 lakh. Mahira was kept under digital arrest for nine hours by keeping her on the call continuously. Sadiq too was confined to his home for four hours. Mahira lodged a police complaint on March 19 and Sadiq on Feb 15.
Cops said the only way to avoid being a victim of such scams is to immediately disconnect the call and contact the nearest police station, or call 112 (police helpline); 1930 (cyber helpline).
