Court room, judge and a verdict on video call: Cyber fraudsters use new modus operandi to dupe Bengaluru man of Rs 59 lakh

The complainant added, “I was connected to a call with the so called crime branch of police, Colaba, Mumbai, who mentioned that my aadhaar card was used to open an account in Canara Bank which is under investigation for money laundering and then the call was connected to what the callers claimed was the CBI department where one Rahul Gupta, the so called investigation officer, connected the call to the court and the court passed an order to transfer all my money, including those in the fixed deposit, bank account and mutual funds. Whole night I was put under surveillance and was forced to go to a bank to transfer the amount. Under pressure, I transferred Rs 59 lakh in two transactions.”

In the first transaction, the complainant transferred Rs 50 lakh and in the second, he transferred Rs 9 lakh. In the complaint, he said, “After transferring the amount, they tracked me till I reached home and then stopped the surveillance. Sensing something was wrong, I went to the Indiranagar police station and took their help to register a complaint through the 1930 helpline.”

A police officer said, “After the judge’s fake order, the cyber criminals lured the man by saying they would handle the court and asked him to transfer the money.”

East CEN police have registered a case under Sections 66 (c) (identity theft) and 66(d) (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act and 318 (4) (cheating and thereby dishonestly induces the person deceived to deliver any property) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).