Navy sailor falls victim to part-time job fraud, loses ₹8 lakh

Mumbai: An Indian Navy sailor, who was looking for a part-time job, reportedly fell victim to cyber fraud and lost ₹8.07 lakh.

Mumbai: An Indian Navy sailor, who was looking for a part-time job, reportedly fell victim to cyber fraud and lost ₹8.07 lakh.

Navy sailor falls victim to part-time job fraud, loses ₹8 lakh

The complainant, Sandeep Singh, 23, of INS Shikra, in Colaba, on Monday approached the police.

Sing had received a WhatsApp message from the “general manager” of one “Lazada Project” early this month. The message stated that the company was forming a part-time team. Anyone can join the team for work from home and earn a salary ranging between ₹8,000 and ₹20,000 per month.

The message also had a link attached to it. On clicking the link Singh was connected to a person on WhatsApp, who helped him complete the registration procedure to get the job and made him fill an online form divulging his personal details. The Navy sailor was also provided a user ID and password, and was made to coordinate with another senior executive on Telegram, the FIR said.

The executive had told him that his job had started and Singh was asked to complete the “Shopee Mall task”. He was asked to buy a product online and after completing this task he received a bonus in a virtual account linked to the company. Later, the bonus money was credited in the bank account of Singh. After this he started trusting the company, a police officer said.

The company began giving him tasks one after another and he completed nearly 19 tasks by buying products by spending money from his own pocket and his “earnings” were being shown to be deposited in the virtual account.

On Saturday, Singh was informed that his last task was pending and he needed to pay ₹1.03 lakh to complete the task. He was told that once he completed the task, he would be able to withdraw all his earnings and bonus from the virtual account.

The sailor accordingly paid the money, but despite that he was unable to withdraw his earnings from the virtual account. When he contacted the company executives, they told him that there was a problem with the withdrawal limit on his account and to get it resolved they asked him to complete one more task. The complainant had already spent over ₹8 lakh and when the company executives asked him to spend more, he realised that he was being cheated.

“We have registered a case against the unidentified holders of WhatsApp and Telegram accounts under sections 420 (cheating) of Indian Penal Code and 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of Information Technology Act. We are seeking details of the said accused users from the messaging platform and also trying to get details of the beneficiary bank accounts,” another police officer said.