Delhi: 3 held for cheating people by posing as govt officials providing booster dose

On January 1, a case was registered at the Cyber Cell on the complaint of a 45-year-old man. He alleged that he had received a call from unknown persons who claimed to be calling from the Prime Minister’s office. They offered to register the victim for the booster dose and took his personal details. An OTP was sent to the victim’s phone, which they asked for. The accused later hacked into the victim’s WhatsApp account and asked his brother to send Rs 50,000.

Police shared a call recording of the incident, in which the caller poses as an official from the vaccine department and asks the victim to do a conference call to book a centre for the booster dose.

DCP (Cyber) KPS Malhotra said, “To make sure the victim doesn’t get suspicious, the accused would invite them for a conference call and then ask for the OTP. They would use the OTP to get into the account, send messages to friends, and take their money.”

Police said Kumar confessed that he learnt techniques to hack WhatsApp accounts from YouTube videos. The mobile phones of the accused and other devices used in the crime were recovered.

Police said Kumar is involved in three molestation cases and they are checking the trio’s involvement in other cheating cases.