A 51-year-old Gurgaon man ended up losing Rs 56 lakh after a group of men, posing as FedEx and Mumbai police cybercrime officers, targeted him – putting him on a 72-hour-long Skype call in the garb of investigation – and asked him to transfer the amount to look into alleged money laundering activities. The ordeal started on February 11 and ended only on February 14 when the victim stumbled upon news of similar crimes on his phone and approached the police. Speaking to The Indian Express, the victim, who did not wish to be identified, said, “I had to sit in front of the camera for 72 hours and take permission before having my meals or taking bathroom breaks.” In his police complaint, the resident of Sector 51, said he received a call from someone claiming to be from FedEx, Mumbai, that a consignment of passport, credit cards, narcotics, and a laptop on its way to Taiwan had been flagged by the customs department. He was told that the booking was done using his Aadhaar card. “The caller asked to lodge a complaint and helped me connect with the Mumbai Cyber branch,” he said, adding the call was connected with a person claiming to be an ASI. “He connected with me through Skype and said police would check my Aadhaar for money laundering links with the underworld,” he said. On February 12, a man claiming to be DCP, Mumbai Cyber Crime, told him to break his FD, stocks, and mutual funds and transfer all the money to a single account for “monitoring”. All of this amounted to around Rs 56.7 lakh, which he was asked to further transfer to an account with Punjab National Bank's Andheri Branch. SHO of Cyber Crime police station, Jasvir Singh, said such complaints have risen over the past eight months. “These calls come from internet-based numbers. We traced one such number to a man in Bareilly once, and he had nothing to do with the crime.” The SHO said that once a cybercrime takes place, the victim should call the cyber crime helpline number, 1930, to help trace the money and block accounts. “This has resulted in many victims retrieving at least a major share of the conned money,” he said.
