Fraud hacks into Lodha group director’s email to dupe foreign companies

An unknown person posing as the former director of Lodha Group of Companies has been booked for sending fraudulent emails to international charity organizations and companies seeking donations or investments. The accused is suspected of hacking the email account of the group's director. A case has been registered against the accused under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and IT Act.

MUMBAI: An unknown person has been booked for posing as the former director of Lodha Group of Companies and sending emails to several international charity organisations and companies asking them to invest in the group or seeking donations.

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According to the NM Joshi Marg police officials suspect that the accused might have hacked the email id of the group’s director, Abhinandan Lodha.

The case was registered based on the complaint lodged by a public relations officer of the Lodha Group of Companies and Tomorrow Capital Enterprises Private Limited (Lodha Ventures). According to the complainant, the matter came to their notice while checking emails received by Abhinandan Lodha.

“Lodha had received several feedback emails from companies, thanking him for contacting or simply saying the senders should soon reply to his emails. When the emails were checked in detail by the Information Technology head, they realised that various foreign-based charity organisations and companies were approached by some unknown person, who identified himself as Francis Sequeira, a former director of the group,” a police officer said.

“The fraud sought donations from the charity organisation and even investments from some companies using the group’s names. He even promised to invest in some companies,” the police officer added.

The police suspect the accused hacked into the e-mail account of Abhinandan Lodha, son of Maharashtra minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha, and used it to send emails. “The accused had earlier sent an email to Abhinandan Lodha asking him to invest in his start-up to get good returns. However, Abhinandan never saw the email as it went into the spam folder,” said the police officer.

“We have registered a case against the unknown accused for cheating by personation under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and under various sections of the IT Act and are trying to identify the accused,” said the police officer.