NRI loses Rs 33 lakh to bank fraud

A whopping Rs 33 lakh was allegedly siphoned off from an NRI’s bank account in south Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar through fraudulent transactions executed over three days, allegedly by using a cloned debit card. Jatin Anand reports.

A whopping Rs 33 lakh was allegedly siphoned off from an NRI’s bank account in south Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar through fraudulent transactions executed over three days, allegedly by using a cloned debit card.

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According to the police, the victim, who stays in the Shahin Bagh area adjacent to Lajpat Nagar, had been maintaining the said Non-Resident External Rupee (NRE) account in the local SBI branch for the past many years.

Her husband is employed at Abu Dhabi and he keeps visiting the family on regular intervals in addition to wiring a part of his salary to the said family account.“On the morning of November 15, the complainant decided to check her account balance at a road-side ATM. She approached us immediately after she realised that her balance was less by Rs 33 lakh,” said a police officer.

Despite subscribing to an SMS alert facility provided by the bank, the complainant claimed that she had not received even a single update about the withdrawals, leading her to suspect the role of an insider.

“According to her, she had made minor purchases at two jewellery shops before the fraudulent transactions took place,” the officer said. “We suspect a cloned debit card — either an exact replica of the original, which is available in the grey market,” the officer added.