70-year-old loses ₹1.15 crore to elaborate fraud over 6 years

The police said that the fraudsters, posing as income tax officers, contacted her under the pretext of returning some of her deceased husband’s money and asked her to pay various taxes and penalties over 50 transactions from 2019 to 2025

MUMBAI: A 70-year-old woman lost ₹1.15 crore to cyber fraud over six years. The police said that the fraudsters, posing as income tax officers, contacted her under the pretext of returning some of her deceased husband’s money and asked her to pay various taxes and penalties over 50 transactions from 2019 to 2025.

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The woman, a Worli resident, on Monday, filed a complaint with the Dadar police, saying that she had received a call in May 2019 from a woman who identified herself as ‘Deepika’, an income tax officer employed at the Integrated Grievance Management System (IGMS) of the central government.

Deepika told the woman that her husband had paid income tax but had not filed for returns, and the department wanted to return that money to her. According to the police, when the woman said that she was not interested in the money, Deepika insisted that if she did not help in processing the refund, she would invite an income tax inquiry and legal action against herself.

The police said that in August 2019, the fraudster asked the woman to sign and post a ₹26,550 cheque to a firm from Ghaziabad. During the pandemic, she did not get any calls from the fraudsters, but in May 2023, someone identifying herself as ‘Priya’ from the IGMS called her and asked for ₹8 lakh claiming it was the penalty she had to pay because her husband had not filed his tax returns for 10 years.

According to the police, the fraudsters asked the woman to pay various amounts in the name of transfer tax, Goods and Services Tax (GST) , Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST), health insurance cover etc. They forced her to deposit ₹10 lakh as a security deposit in her own bank account and later instructed her to transfer the bank balance to them, saying that the money would be kept in a fixed deposit and returned to her once the refund process was complete.

The police said that the fraudsters demanded various amounts from the woman and coerced her to send the money multiple times, claiming that the transactions had failed. After she had paid them a total of ₹1.15 crore through 50 transactions, they demanded ₹22.5 lakh more claiming that her husband had not paid his Union Territory Goods and Services Tax (UGST) and she would have to pay the tax and the penalty.

The woman began to suspect foul play on April 17, 2025 when the fraudsters asked for an additional ₹22.5 lakh. She then filed a complaint with the Dadar police, who have registered a case against the yet unidentified fraudsters under sections sections 318 (cheating), 319 (cheating by personation), 316 (criminal breach of trust) and 351 (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).