An 86-year-old retired colonel from Sector 25 was allegedly duped of ₹ 1.72 lakh by cyber fraudsters posing as bank officials, in one of three fraud cases registered by the Panchkula cyber crime police in recent days. The three victims collectively lost ₹ 6.42 lakh in the alleged scams.
They offered to block his card and arrange a replacement. Beri, who had retired as a colonel, subsequently received a new credit card. He immediately contacted the bank and got his account and credit card blocked. All three payments were allegedly made to the same UPI ID. During the alleged verification process, the fraudsters obtained access to his banking details.
The victim, Vijay Kumar Beri, received a message on August 4 regarding an alleged ₹ 90,000 transaction on his credit card, according to the registered complaint. However, on August 16, he received messages regarding two unauthorised transactions of ₹ 51,475 and ₹ 30,885. Police registered a case under Sections 316(2) (criminal breach of trust) and 318(4) (aggravated cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) on August 29 and initiated an investigation. In another case, a 75-year-old retired district attorney of the marketing board, Meenu Mittal, a Sector 6 resident, was allegedly cheated of ₹ 1 lakh by a fraudster posing as an OTT platform customer-care executive. Mittal contacted a number she believed was linked to customer care after facing a problem with a channel on her television on August 22, according to the complaint. She was subsequently persuaded to make a ₹ 100 payment to restore the service. About an hour later, Mittal discovered that ₹ 1 lakh had been withdrawn from her bank account through three PhonePe transactions of ₹ 50,000, ₹ 40,000 and ₹ 10,000. Police registered a case on August 27 under Sections 316(2), 318(4) and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the BNS. Within 35 to 40 minutes, Gupta received a message indicating that his fixed deposit had been prematurely withdrawn. He rushed to the bank and found that ₹ 2.50 lakh had been withdrawn from his account, while another ₹ 1.20 lakh had been charged to his credit card. Police registered a case on August 28 under Sections 316(2), 318(4) and 61(2) of the BNS and launched an investigation into the alleged fraud.
The fraudsters allegedly contacted him through a fake bank helpline and told him that the transaction was unauthorised. The caller allegedly told her that there was a technical issue and asked her to install an application through a link sent to her phone.
