‘Drugs in parcel sent to Taiwan’: IPS officer’s name used to cheat techie of Rs 25 lakh, third such case in 3 weeks

In the latest case, a 29-year-old software professional approached the Pune city cybercrime police station and a First Information Report (FIR) was registered Thursday (April 13) afternoon.

Officials said that on the morning of April 11, the complainant got a call from people claiming to be executives of a courier service, saying a parcel had been sent to Taiwan in the complainant’s name and 140 gm of drugs had been found in it.

“She was subsequently contacted by a man identifying himself as police officer Ajay Kumar Bansal. The complainant was also sent a forged inquiry report of the Mumbai police bearing a fraudulent signature of another serving IPS officer currently posted in Mumbai. Subsequently, the criminals threatened her with serious legal action and under various pretexts, they made her transfer Rs 25.61 lakh to two bank accounts in six transactions. The entire sequence of events took place in four hours. The complainant approached the cybercrime cell when she realised she had been cheated. After verification of the details, an FIR was registered on Thursday,” said an officer from the cybercrime police station.

Senior inspector Minal Patil, in-charge of the cybercrime police station, said, “This is the third such incident in three weeks in which people have been manipulated into making large transfers using the name of a senior officer. While a coordinated probe is on into these cases, we feel it is important to create awareness about them. We are undertaking an awareness campaign, particularly for such cases, as part of our ongoing sensitisation effort.”

Two women had lost close to Rs 1 crore in the two previous cyber heists after fraudsters manipulated them using the name ‘Ajay Kumar Bansal’.

In one case, being probed by the Pune cybercrime police station, a 31-year-old woman from the city lost Rs 92 lakh as criminals posed as courier company staffers and a “Mumbai cybercrime department” officer. The callers claimed that a “parcel containing 800 gm of drugs had been sent in her name to Taiwan”.

A criminal, posing as the officer, told the woman that “hackers were trying to siphon off money from her bank accounts” and suggested she temporarily transfer it to three bank accounts given by him. Fearing the loss of money from her bank accounts, the complainant transferred Rs 91,94,130 to the three accounts provided by the fraudsters over multiple transfers on April 3 and 4. Later when the complainant tried to contact the number, it was switched off. After discussing with her family members, the complainant realised she had been cheated and approached the police. Like in the latest case, this complainant, too, had not sent any parcel to anyone.

The same police officer’s name was also used in the case registered at Ravet police station in Pimpri-Chinchwad in which a woman software engineer was duped of Rs 6 lakh in the last week of March after she was told that her accounts were being used for “international terror funding”, officers said. The fraudster even sent a fake identity card of the police officer to establish his credentials. The caller said that the complainant’s Aadhaar card details and the photo on the Aadhaar card were being misused and that using these details, six transactions had been made from her bank account for ‘“international terror funding”.

The caller said that her account would have to be verified and sought Rs 98,326 for each of the six transactions. The complainant made the online transfers to two bank accounts as told by the fraudster. She later realised that she had been cheated and approached the police.