Mumbai IT Executive Loses Rs 6.3 Crore in Shocking Online Fraud by Cybercriminals | Pune News – Times of India

PUNE: A top executive with a Mumbai-based software company lost Rs 6.29 crore to cybercrooks in the biggest online fraud recorded so far by the Pune Cyber police.
Police said the crooks, impersonating CBI officials, kept the 59-year-old victim under “digital arrest” for five days between Nov 9 and Nov 14 at his residence in Pashan on the pretext of “verification and investigation of money laundering transactions involving his mobile phone number”.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber) Vivek Masal told TOI on Wednesday, “The victim, who will retire from service in the next six months, was thoroughly disturbed when he approached us with a complaint. We took him into confidence and counselled him into lodging a complaint and registered an FIR. A police team has been formed to analyse the audio-video calls between the crooks and the victim and details of the bank accounts where money was transferred to establish the money trail.”
He added, “We have sent emails to the telecom companies and the banks concerned to provide call data records and statements of accounts at the earliest.”
Pune Cyber police’s senior inspector Swapnali Shinde cited the complaint and said, “The crooks contacted the victim over a mobile messenger application and informed him that he was placed under digital arrest for his suspected involvement in a money laundering case. The victim slipped into panic mode when the crooks told him that they had his Aadhaar card details.”
“The crooks told the victim to send them a photocopy of the Aadhar card and details of money available in his bank accounts for verification purposes. They collected details of Rs6.29 crores the victim had in his three bank accounts, maintaining that the same was part of an inquiry process. The crooks then asked the victim to transfer the money to their bank accounts, claiming that the same was being done as per the Reserve Bank of India norms. They promised him that he would get back his money post-inquiry, if he was found not involved in any money laundering activity,” Shinde said.
Police said the victim followed the crooks’ instructions thinking that they were from CBI and transferred money via online and RTGS in five transactions to their bank accounts. The victim expressed his inability to transfer more money when the crooks asked them to make more money transfers.
At this juncture, the crooks asked him to seek a loan of Rs60 lakh to settle the matter or else they would send a police team to arrest him. The crooks kept him under pressure by claiming that in the past they had jailed several people like him.
The victim later stopped communicating with the crooks on realizing that he was tricked but he continued to get threatening calls relating to his arrest till Nov 19, Shinde said.