A 45-year-old man who had put up an online advertisement to rent his vacant flat in Pune was duped of Rs 1.50 lakh by a cyber fraudster who impersonated an Army official and on the pretext of making an advanced payment, tricked him into transferring money. An FIR was registered at the MIDC police station on June 5. The complainant works as a sales executive in a property consultant company in MIDC. His 82-year-old father has a flat in Pune but recently moved in with the complainant and the family decided to rent out their flat in Pune. On June 3, he gave online advertisements on 99acres.com, MagicBricks and NoBroker. He received a phone call the next day from an “Army official”, who was interested in renting the flat. The caller asked the complainant to send photos and videos of his flat. Afterwards, the caller said he is ready to rent the flat and introduced himself as a Captain in the Indian Army, police said. He agreed to pay Rs 46,000 rent and Rs 1.84 lakh deposit. The caller then sent him an Aadhaar card, PAN card and driving licence in the name of a person from Andhra Pradesh. He also sent the Army’s identity card, including his photo with the same name, police said. The caller then said he has a smart card and asked the complainant to send Rs 10, saying that he would receive the money back. The complainant sent him Rs 10 and soon after received Rs 10 in his account. The caller then asked him to send Rs 49,000 for “security purposes” and told him that the amount would not be debited. The complainant sent the money but did not receive the same amount back. The caller told him there was a technical error, and further made the complainant deposit a total of Rs 1.50 lakh in three transactions. He then switched off his phone. The complainant then approached the police.
