Mumbai: A 67-year-old woman has lodged a complaint with the police stating that she was duped by a gang of scammers who impersonated as police officers and induced her to transfer Rs 23.20 lakh.
According to the police, the complainant is a resident of Nagpur. On July 15, she received a phone call from an unknown woman, informing her that a sim card had been procured in her name and was linked to a bank account in Mumbai. She was told that an illegal transaction of Rs 2 crore had been made and a commission of Rs 20 lakh of the said transaction had been deposited in her Mumbai based bank account.
Next day, the complainant received a video call from a person wearing a police uniform. The caller identified himself as an officer from Tilak Nagar police station and shared a bogus Enforcement Directorate arrest warrant document with the woman on her WhatsApp. Another scammer who was part of the gang, impersonated an Additional Director General of Police rank officer posted in Mumbai and spoke to her making similar false claims.
The transaction was conducted between July 18 and July 29 through online transactions in different beneficiary bank accounts provided by them on the pretext of verifying her transactions. Later when the victim informed her son about the incident, she was told that she had been duped. She then approached the police and got an offence registered.
Recently a 53-year-old man was scammed in a similar manner wherein he was duped by a gang of fraudsters who posed as Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and police officials. On the pretext of checking the bank account transactions, the man was induced to transfer Rs22 lakh.