Fraudster impersonates as cop to dupe ₹20.37 lakh from Gurugram woman

Police booked unidentified suspects for allegedly duping a woman of ₹20

Police booked unidentified suspects for allegedly duping a woman of ₹20.37 lakh, Gurugram police said on Tuesday. Police said the fraudsters first impersonated as FedEx officials and later as a deputy commissioner of police of Mumbai to trap the woman who is a resident of Sushant Lok Phase-2.

Fraudster impersonates as cop to dupe ₹20.37 lakh from Gurugram woman

Investigators said the fraudster had impersonated himself as DCP Balsing Rajput, who is a senior officer in Mumbai Police’s cyber crime department.

Police said the victim, a 27-year-old woman, received a phone call at 12.03pm on March 3 and was told that a consignment had reached the port in Mumbai, but it was confiscated by customs officials for containing illegal items.

Police added that the impersonator told the victim that the matter was reported to the Andheri police station and Mumbai Police officers will contact her.

Priyanshu Diwan, assistant commissioner of police (cyber crime), said the fraudster posed a DCP rank officer of the Mumabai Police and started quizzing the woman over the phone. He told her that her Aadhaar number was used in multiple transactions to launder money.

“They even abused and threatened to arrest her from Gurugram for illegal activities and later extorted money on the pretext of clearing her name from the case,” ACP Diwan said.

According to investigators, the fraudster alleged that the woman’s three bank accounts were used for money laundering.

As per police, the victim was terrorised and told the fraudster what needs to be done in order to establish that she has no bank accounts in Mumbai, police said. At this moment, he asked her to validate her bank accounts by making transactions and also to clear her name from the investigation, police added.

In order to gain trust, the suspect also made a Skype call, investigators said. Police said she transferred ₹20.37 lakh from her two accounts in multiple transactions within a day for validating her accounts and to get her name cleared from the alleged money laundering case.

However, she soon realised that she had fallen victim to a cyber fraud and approached the police on March 4.

On her written complaint, an FIR against unknown suspects was registered under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Information Technology (IT) Act at the Cyber Crime police station (East) on Monday night after a detailed probe, police added.

HT tried to contact the complainant but she did not respond to calls and messages.

ACP Diwan said police are investigating the case and will arrest the suspects soon.

“We are collecting the account details in which the money was transferred. In the last one week, at least three such complaints had reached us where fraudsters impersonated themselves as Mumbai Police officers,” ACP Diwan added.