Online lottery frauds on the rise,say cops

Investigation has however revealed that a few persons operating the online lottery rackets are located in Delhi. “The fraudsters in Delhi are circulating the emails and SMS to many people saying that they have won a lottery. Some emails and SMS give lucrative offers of providing loans at a very low interest rate. Six persons from Pune have lost Rs 20 lakh to the Delhi based fraudsters,” Dahale said.

In a recent case,Anil Raghunath Salvi (44) of Wadgaon Sheri lost Rs 67,000 to an online lottery fraud. Salvi has lodged a complaint at the Yerwada police station against one Jhonson Smith and his accomplice in this case. According to the police,the fraudsters send and SMS to Salvi in the last month saying that he had won a gift of 2.5 lakh pounds in an international mobile lottery scheme. The fraudsters asked Salvi to deposit Rs 95,000 in different banks account at Delhi for clearing the custom duties on his gift. Salvi deposited Rs 67,200 in the bank accounts in three transactions. But he never received any gift. Assistant police inspector M B Khandale is investigating the case.

Police said that even educated people get lured with these fraudulent emails and SMS. People deposit huge amount of money into the accounts told by the fraudsters through Internet transactions.