The City police have launched a comprehensive probe into a racket that defrauded two persons of nearly ₹3 crore by posing as officials of Central agencies.
A team led by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Nidhinraj P. has been tasked with the probe.
In the first case, a chartered accountant was swindled of ₹2.25 crore by a person who contacted him claiming to be an official of the Mumbai Customs on November 2. He claimed that a parcel containing several fake passports and 75 grams of MDMA meant to be sent abroad using the complainant’s Aadhaar card had been seized. Claiming that the case had been handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the complainant was asked to prove that he possessed no black money.
For this, he was allegedly asked to transfer 75% of his bank account savings to six bank accounts. The cash, the fraudster claimed, would be returned after detailed scrutiny by the Reserve Bank of India. While the victim transferred the first instalment, he received a fake receipt in the name of the Finance Ministry. While he transferred the rest of the money during the next two days, he felt that something was amiss after being intimidated by the caller seeking more payment.
During the preliminary probe, the Cyber Crimes wing found that the payments had been further transferred to 36 other bank accounts. One bank account containing ₹25 lakh has been frozen.
In the second case, a trader was swindled of ₹60 lakh that is suspected to have been orchestrated by the same gang.
