Three Chandigarh residents duped in nine days by online fraudsters, police launch probe

In the first case, the complainant, identified as one Sahil Ali of Dhanas, told the police that he was duped by a man on online marketplace OLX. The fraudster in this case identified himself as one Ashok Gupta to Ali, and claimed to be an officer with the CRPF and had been transferred from Chandigarh to Jaipur. The fraudster, the complaint submitted by Ali said, had posted a picture of an Alto K10 car on OLX which he wanted to sell at a cheap price as he was transferred. Ali contacted the suspect on phone and agreed to purchase the car. In response, the man asked Ali to transfer Rs 5,200 in his account as transport charges and token money for the car on January 26.

Police said that accordingly, Ali transferred the token money, after which the fraudster asked him to send more money, before he could take delivery of the vehicle. However, Ali got suspicious and later realised that he had been cheated and approached the police. Preliminary probe later found that the suspect’s phone number was registered on a fake identity and a case was registered.

‘UK resident’ befriends woman, cheats her of Rs 1.10 lakh

In the second case, a Sector 37 resident submitted a complaint to the polcie stating that she had been cheated by a man — who called himself Leonardo Antonia — who she met on Instagram a few days ago. The woman reported that she came in contact with the suspect on January 22 and after three days, the man messaged her on instagram that he was sending a gift for her from the UK, for which she would just have to pay the custom clearance charges. The woman then reportedly on January 26 transferred Rs 50,000 to an account that had been provided to her. The account was registered in the name of one Rajiv. The woman reported that later she received another call the next day demanding an additional Rs 95,000 for issuing an anti-money laundering certificate as the gift packet contained 45000 pounds. The woman then managed to transfer another Rs 60,000. Some days later, she received amother call asking for more money to be transferred and further sent another Rs Rs 80,000 on January 28. The woman said that the caller kept pressing her to pay more money which was when she realised that she had been duped and registered a case with the police. Police later found that the Instagram account of Leonardo Antonia had disappeared and registered a case.

Raipur Kurd man duped Rs 34,090

According to the police, a resident of Raipur Khurd village, Ravinder Kumar, had approached them with a complaint in which he claimed that he had received a message that the electricity connection of the house would be disconnected as he had not paid his electricity bill on January 24. Police said that Ravinder Kumar had in turn panicked and contacted the phone number mentioned in the text message. The man then sent Kumar a weblink and told him to install it. The link was of Anydesk app link through which the suspect gained entry into the cell phone of Kumar and transferred Rs 34,090 from his account to another account using online bank service.