When Nagamallappa, 42, a farmer from Kumachahalli village in Chamarajanagar district received a message on his phone from a company offering him a loan of ₹5 lakh for just 50 paise on April 14, he could scarcely resist the temptation.
Soon, he followed the link sent along with the message only to be duped into transferring into the fraudsters’ account ₹1.75 lakh in different instalments between April 14 and 17 towards “GST” and “commission”. Mr. Nagamallappa was told that he had to transfer the amount towards “GST and commission” for the loan to be approved and sanctioned.
But, he realised that he had been taken for a ride by the online fraudsters and approached the police on April 21. The Cyber Economics and Narcotics (CEN) Crime police station in Chamarajanagar took up a case.
After obtaining the details of the online transfer of the money from the complainant, the cyber crime sleuths checked the IFSC code and found out that the money had been transferred to the account of a private bank’s branch in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. Immediately, an e-mail was sent to the officials of the bank’s branch to freeze the account, which had a balance of about ₹2.39 lakh.
The complainant was then asked to approach the court for an order to secure the release of his money from the frozen account of the accused. Accordingly, the complainant secured an order from a local court and produced the same before the police.
The police sent another communication to the manager of the bank’s branch in Lucknow with a copy of the court order to transfer the defrauded amount back to the complainant. Eventually, Mr. Nagamallappa received his ₹ 1.75 lakh back in his account on May 13, according to a statement from Chamarajanagar district police.
Superintendent of Chamarajanagar district police T.P. Shivakumar and Additional Superintendent of Chamarajanagar district police Sundar Raj have complimented CEN crime police station inspector Mahadev Shetty and his team for cracking the case.
