Hoshiarpur- Cyber ????thugs have reportedly duped an ex-serviceman of Rs 10.50 lakh by keeping him under digital arrest for eight hours. The incident is reported to have taken place on Monday, December 23. Ramesh Sharma (a retired Subedar from the Indian Army) of village Sekhowal in Beet area of ????Garhshankar said that on Monday, December 23, at around 10 am, he received a call from a foreign number +6695522510 and later the fraudster made a video call, claiming to be a police officer and told me that I am a police inspector from Andheri Mumbai Police Station.
A case of money laundering has been registered against you. Send your Aadhar card, we have to confirm. After telling the Aadhar card number, he said that 20 cases are registered against you. He told that Naresh Goyal of Sangrur has cheated him of two crores through money laundering and transferred Rs 20 lakh to your Canara Bank account. Therefore, your arrest warrant has been issued and you are to be arrested.
Saying this, he made him talk to another fraudster and told him to talk to DGP sahab and the fraudster posing as DGP said that your case is with me. If you transfer Rs 20 lakh to an account through RTGS, I will dismiss the case otherwise you will have to come to Mumbai and while continuing the video call, warned him not to share the conversation with any family member.
After this, the ex-serviceman went to the Punjab National Bank branch in Pojewal and transferred Rs 10.5 lakh to the account number 60518542360 IFSC code MAHB 0001332 of Maharashtra Bank Ghaziabad branch given by the fraudsters at 4.57 pm. The account is said to be in the name of a woman named Jyoti daughter of Harishchandra. It was found that the fraudsters transferred the said amount to another account after half an hour.
After an hour, Ramesh Sharma realized that he had been cheated. Then the fraudsters said to pay security fee i.e. three lakh rupees more. But Ramesh Sharma asked for two days time because he did not have any more money. It is worth noting that the fraudsters made about 5 different calls, all the DPs have pictures of senior police officers. Even after this, the fraudsters are continuously calling from the phones whose DPs have pictures of police officers. But Ramesh Sharma is not picking up the phone.
In this regard, Ramesh Kumar Sharma has lodged a complaint in cyber crime. It is worth noting that this is the first news of its kind in Hoshiarpur district. In this regard, the Reserve Bank is continuously appealing to the people to be aware and be cautious of digital ban through social media, print media, electronic media.