Mumbai man, 80, befriends ‘4 girls’ on Fb, loses ₹9 crore to on-line rip-off
An 80-year-old Mumbai man was scammed of almost ₹9 crore over two years allegedly by 4 girls, who’re presumably the identical individual, who duped him by means of 734 on-line transactions.
NDTV reported that the fraud started in April 2023 when the sufferer related with a girl named Sharvi on Fb.
The lady claimed that she had separated from her husband and sought cash for her youngsters’s medical bills.
Over time, different girls, named Kavita, Dinaz, and Jasmine, contacted the person through WhatsApp, every asking for monetary help beneath completely different pretexts.
The fraud intensified when Dinaz advised the sufferer that Sharvi had died and demanded cash to cowl her hospital bills. She allegedly threatened to take her personal life if he refused.
By January 2025, the person had exhausted his financial savings, paying her a complete of ₹8.7 crore. He then borrowed cash from his son and daughter-in-law, persevering with the funds till his son grew suspicious and stepped in.
The revelation that he had fallen prey to a cyber rip-off left the person severely shocked; he was hospitalised and later identified with dementia. A cybercrime case was filed on July 22, and investigations are underway, NDTV reported.
Faux name centre busted in Delhi
In an unrelated incident, the Lucknow police has arrested two males from Delhi for allegedly working a bogus name centre that defrauded folks by posing as financial institution representatives and luring them into bank card renewal scams.
The gang is suspected to have dedicated cyber frauds amounting to over ₹50 lakh up to now 12 months, they mentioned.
Addressing a press convention, deputy commissioner of police (South) Nipun Aggarwal mentioned a neighborhood resident, Jitendra Kumar, had filed a criticism in June on the Sarojini Nagar police station. He reported receiving a telephone name from somebody claiming to be a financial institution official who advised him that his bank card was about to run out and wanted renewal.
The fraudsters then accessed his card and siphoned off ₹1.6 lakh, he mentioned.
“Appearing swiftly, our cybercrime crew and Sarojini Nagar police traced the suspects to the Jaitpur space in South Delhi and arrested two people – Vikas Kumar (28) and Rahul Lakhera (31),” Aggarwal mentioned, talking alongside extra DCP Rallapalli Vasanth Kumar.
The police mentioned they recovered 25 cell phones, almost two dozen SIM playing cards, a laptop computer, and different digital instruments from the accused. Investigations revealed that the duo operated out of Vikas Kumar’s home, which additionally served because the faux name centre.
A number of girls had been employed there, making fraudulent calls to unsuspecting victims. They had been paid month-to-month salaries starting from ₹10,000 to ₹15,000.
DCP Agarwal mentioned the gang used private information offered by an confederate referred to solely as “Dubey ji” from Bihar, who provided bank card data of potential victims on the charge of ₹10 per buyer.
(With inputs from PTI)
