The cyber crime cell of the Pune police said that they are observing a new trend in the cases of Nigerian frauds where the tricksters are targeting city-based businessmen dealing with parties outside the countries. In last two months,there were five cases in which city-based businessmen were duped with the help of fake email accounts. Sanjay Shinde,deputy commissioner of police (Cyber Crime and Economic Offences Wing) said,Much of the communication by these businessmen is through emails. There have been incidents in which their customers have been asked to deposit money in some different account. In one such case,fraudsters posed as a Bopodi-based supplier of spare parts and asked their customer in Canada to deposit $26,300 in an international bank account. Police said that the suspects in the case were from Nigeria. In another incident,tricksters posed as a supplier of mechanical equipements from Bhosari MIDC and sent an email to a customer in Dubai asking to deposit money in an international bank account based in Mumbai. In yet another case,a Pune-based businessman was sent an email in which he was asked to deposit money in a China bank account. Inspector Sanjay Tungar of Cyber crime cell said,In all the cases fraudsters used the same mode of communication to interact with customers abroad. It is always advisable that multiple modes of communication should be used. And transfer of money should be done only after the message is cross checked by a phone call or a fax. We would also advice people to use email based on their company servers. Tungar added,We would also advice businessmen to start using digital signature in their email communication. That will ensure the safety in communication and will also be admissible as proofs in the court of law.
