Photo courtesy of NDTV
New Delhi: A gang posing on Skype as CBI, customs, narcotics, and income-tax officers duped a retired senior executive, based in Andhra Pradesh's Visakhapatnam, into paying ₹ 85 lakh promising to return the money after checking his accounts, NDTV reported.
The 57-year-old retired associate general manager of a pharma company headquartered in Germany handed a cheque which the gang transferred to a firm named 'Rana Garments’ operating an HDFC account in Delhi's Uttam Nagar.
The first information report (FIR) filed with the Visakhapatanam police said the money was then transferred from the HDFC account of 'Rana Garments' to 105 accounts across the country.
It is reported that HDFC Bank's Uttam Nagar branch filed a complaint regarding the fraud.
The retired executive said that he had taken voluntary retirement despite having left three more years of service because he wanted to send his son to study abroad.
‘I got the retirement settlement on May 2. My son's visa appointment was on May 17. But on May 14, I was duped by the gang into sending ₹ 85 lakh, which they said would be returned after checking my records,’ he was quoted as saying.
The retired executive reportedly claimed the gang had known everything about his bank account including his retirement benefit, which according to him meant some insiders at the bank in Visakhapatnam may have involved in the fraud.
He reportedly asked the police whether no KYC (know your customer) was carried out for Rana Garments by the Uttam Nagar (Delhi) branch, adding that police enquiry in Delhi revealed another company occupying the place where Rana Garments should have been.
"The gang told me to go to the nearest HDFC Bank and drop the cheque," NDTV quoted him as saying.
It all began, according to the FIR, after his retirement benefits was credited to his HDFC bank account. It was then he received a call from a man who introduced himself as ‘DCP Cyber Crime Balsing Rajput’.
DCP alleged that the executive's name was associated with many narcotics and money laundering cases with his Aadhaar having linked to all these cases.
Afterwards the DCP called up another man who posed as his senior who threatened to file an FIR against the retired executive.
"I was under immense pressure and threatened by them that I would be jailed there and then. The fake DCP after speaking for a while with his fake boss said I look innocent, so they should take the ₹ 85 lakh for investigation and return it to me if the police find nothing amiss," the retired officer was quoted by NDTV as saying.
They went on with the ‘interrogation’ on Skype for two days without allowing him to leave home or call anyone.
The retired executive had to deposit the cheque in the HDFC Bank branch in Visakhapatnam and he was promised that the money would be returned to him after verification.
The man said that police refused to tell him if they could track down any of 105 accounts to which his money was transferred.
Meanwhile, the retired executive urged people not to answer WhatsApp video calls from unknown numbers, adding that ‘In one month, the Visakhapatnam cyber police received complaints amounting to ₹ 300 crore.’