Woman duped of ₹5 lakh by conmen posing as IPS offcier

A 40-year-old woman in Mumbai was scammed of ₹5.5 lakh by a conman posing as an IPS officer, claiming her number was linked to illegal activities.

Mumbai: A 40-year-old woman was duped of ₹5.5 lakh by a conman posing as a senior IPS officer from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) after claiming that her mobile number was involved in illegal activities and an inquiry has been started against her. The police have registered a case and are looking for the accused conmen.

Woman duped of ₹5 lakh by conmen posing as IPS offcier

The complainant, a resident of Bhandup, received a call from an unknown number at around 8.53am, claiming that her number would be discontinued within two hours. And for more information, she should press number 1 on her keypad. As soon as she pressed 1, the number was diverted to one Vishal Sharma claiming that he is the inquiry officer of TRAI.

The fraud further told her that her number was taken on June 5 and registered at an address in Louis Wadi, Thane West. The complainant denied that the number they are saying does not belong to her, but they said the number is under her name, which appears in their system and is involved in illegal activities. The caller said that the mobile number would not be discontinued if she got NOC from the crime branch and asked her to provide the information of FIR No. MH 10240824 to the crime officer and the caller then transferred the call.

Another person who introduced himself as Vikram from the Crime Branch informs the fraud (Vikram) that TRAI had said her number was involved in illegal activities which do not belong to her, so she required a NOC from the Crime Branch. The fraud then made a video call on WhatsApp to record her statement and took her document details like her Aadhar card and other information and said she was involved in money laundering, and drug trafficking and said that she was under house arrest and couldn’t go anywhere, as mentioned in the FIR.

The victim’s husband was also listening to the video call. The caller then said the case had been transferred to Milind Bharambe, a big official who will get angry and issued a letter to his staff asking them to take further action. Bharambe is the Navi Mumbai police commissioner.

Then another officer named Omkar Krishna took all the information including bank details asking the victim to transfer 96% of the money in her and husband’s bank account to their bank to trace the illegal activity in her account. Her husband got scared, visited the ICICI Bank, Bhandup, and transferred ₹5.5 lakh. Later the complainant also got a video call, and the caller asked them to transfer more money but when the complainant refused the fraud got angry and asked to take out a loan and send the money, but they refused so they hung up the phone saying that the case would continue. The complainant later realised that they had been duped and registered a case in Bhandup police station.