A 52-year-old software engineer from Bengaluru, Kumarasamy Sivakkumar, was recently tricked into giving Rs 2.24 crore to scammers who posed as Delhi Customs and Narcotics Control Bureau officials, stated police. The fraudsters contacted the victim between March 18 to March 27, claiming that they were talking from the Customs Department.
According to a report by PTI, the scammers told the engineer that an air parcel addressed to him had been detained at the Delhi Airport. They revealed that this parcel consisted of 16 passports, 58 bank ATM cards, and 140 grams of ecstasy tablets (also known as MDMA, a banned narcotic). This call was then transferred to the ‘Narcotics Control Bureau’ where the ‘officer’ forced him to download Skype, and come online. They asked him to pay money if he wanted to get rid of the case.
According to the police, Sivakkumar transferred a total sum of Rs 2.24 crore in eight installments through Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and Immediate Payment Service (IMPS). It was not until April 5 that he realised he had been scammed. He then lodged a complaint at the Bengaluru North East Cyber Crime Police Station.
The police sources revealed that prior to this case, 25 similar cases have been filed in the same police station where the victims had lost a total of Rs 4 crore. They all used similar methods to pay these scammers.
Cybercrimes are becoming quite common these days. Just a few days back, a 29-year-old Bengaluru lawyer was robbed by scammers posing as FedEx executives. They also stated that a parcel had been shipped to New Delhi containing five passports, three credit cards and 140 synthetic narcotics (MDMA) in her name.
They also asked her to pose nude in front of the camera in the name of conducting a narcotics test. Later, they blackmailed her to send them Rs 10 lakh apart from the already sent amount of Rs 14.57 lakh, or else they would make her videos public.
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