Woman duped of ₹8.80 lakh by frauds using IPS officer’s name
A 64-year-old woman was scammed of ₹8.80 lakh by fraudsters posing as CBI officers, claiming her accounts were linked to money laundering.
MUMBAI: A 64-year-old executive working with a shipping company was cheated to the tune of ₹8.80 lakh by frauds, using the name of IPS officer Vinay Kumar Chaubey who is currently the commissioner of police, Pimpri-Chinchwad.
According to the police, the accused called the complainant posing as CBI officers and told her that part of the money laundered by Jet Airways founder, Naresh Goyal was transferred to her bank accounts. The frauds gave her bank account details and asked her to transfer the money.
The woman works at a shipping company in Saki-Naka and stays in the Khar area with her family. On August 17, she got a call from a person who identified himself as Vinay Kumar Chaubey, a CBI officer from Bengaluru.
“He told her that a writ petition was filed against her in the Bengaluru high court as a bank account was opened using her documents and an amount of ₹20 lakh was transferred to that account from Naresh Goyal, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case. The caller also informed the woman that she would also be arrested in the case,” said a police officer from Khar police station.
The woman got afraid and told the caller that she knew who Goyal was, after which the “CBI officer” advised her to approach the Supreme Court to prove that she was innocent, the officer said. “When the woman enquired with him about the way out, the caller asked her to download Skype app (used for making voice and video calls) and told her she should not speak to anyone about this CBI investigation and then inquired as to how many bank accounts she had,” the police officer added.
On August 21, the woman was told that she will be given a clean chit, but she needs to transfer the money in all her bank accounts to the bank account given by the “CBI officer.” She then in five transactions transferred the amount of ₹8.80 lakh – all the balance in her bank accounts - to various bank accounts given by the frauds.
The officer said the amount would be returned to her, but she did not get it back. “After she felt cheated, she approached us and based on her complaint we have registered a case under Sections 318(4) (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act,” said the police officer.
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