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Chandigarh resident duped of ₹70k by swindlers posing as customer care executives
The victim, a resident of Sector 20, Chandigarh, came across the swindlers’ contact information while looking up customer care information of an app on the internet
Police’s cybercrime investigation cell arrested two residents of Patiala for allegedly duping a Sector 20 resident of ₹70,000 through fraudulent withdrawal.
The accused, Sukh Sagar, 24, and Bir Inder Singh, 22, both residents of Khalsa Mohalla, Patiala, were arrested from Patiala and on Friday produced before the court and sent to police custody till June 13.
The victim said she looked up the customer care information of the Zest app on the internet after a duplicate deduction. During the call, she received an OTP that she shared with the person posing as a helpline executive and soon ₹70,000 were deducted from her Zest money app and Amazon gift vouchers were purchased using the money. The gift vouchers were redeemed at Malabar Gold.
A case under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code had been registered at the Sector 19 police station.
At the time of arrest on June 9, police recovered phones which were involved in fraud. During interrogation, the accused said they used to redeem the gift vouchers purchased from cheated money at Malabar, Croma to purchase hold, mobile phones. They further sold the items at a local market.
Man loses ₹34,000 in online scam
Gaurav Malhotra of Sector 22 was also duped of ₹34,000 by a swindler posing as an employee of the Union ministry of defence looking for an accommodation.
The complainant said a person identifying himself as Zope Jitendra Shashikant contacted him to rent out a property in Chandigarh and later shared a scan code to make the payment after finalising the details.
Upon scanning the code, a sum of ₹34,000 was deducted from his account. A case under sections 419, 420 and 120-B of the IPC was registered at the Sector 17 police station.
