A 52-year-old Bengaluru-based software engineer, Kumarasamy Sivakkumar, was recently duped into giving Rs 2.24 crore to fraudsters posing as Delhi Customs and Narcotics Control Bureau officials, police said. Fraudsters contacted the victim from March 18 to 27, claiming to be speaking from the Customs Administration.
According to a PTI report, the fraudsters told the engineer that an air parcel addressed to him had been detained at the Delhi airport. They discovered that this package consisted of 16 passports, 58 ATM cards and 140 grams of ecstasy pills (also known as MDMA, a banned narcotic). This call was then transferred to the ‘Office of Narcotics Control’ where the ‘officer’ forced him to get off Skype and get online. They asked him to pay money if he wanted to settle the case.
According to the police, Sivakkumar transferred a total amount of Rs 2.24 crore in eight installments through Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and Instant Payment Service (IMPS). It was only on April 5 that he realized that he had been deceived. He then lodged a complaint with the North East Bengaluru Cyber Crime Police Station.
Police sources revealed that before this case, 25 similar cases were filed in the same police station in which the victims lost a total of Rs 4 crore. They all used similar methods to pay these scammers.
Cyber crime is becoming quite common these days. Just a few days ago, a 29-year-old lawyer from Bengaluru was robbed by fraudsters posing as FedEx executives. They also stated that a package was sent to New Delhi with five passports, three credit cards and 140 synthetic narcotics (MDMA) in her name.
They also asked her to pose naked in front of the cameras in the name of conducting a drug test. They later blackmailed her to send them 10 lakh rupees apart from the already sent amount of 14.57 lakh rupees or else they will release her videos.
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