390 duped in TN in ‘FedEx’ scam in last two months: police

Chennai: In the past two months, at least 390 people in the state have fallen victim to the 'FedEx' fraud, according to a press statement issued by the Cyber Crime Police on Friday. According to the authorities, the scammers contact victims first and falsely pretend to be calling from FedEx. They would claim that a parcel containing unlawful materials was received in the individual's name.

“Subsequently, the individual is connected to someone posing as a Mumbai cyber crime police officer via video call. Then the victim is sent a photo and asked to confirm whether the person in the picture is familiar to him or her,” the note read.

After the victim claims to have no relation to the person in the photo, the phoney officer claims that the person is an arrested criminal who claims the victim allowed the criminal to use his or her bank accounts for money laundering in exchange for a 10% commission, the New Indian Express reported.

The call is then passed to another individual who claims to be an RBI official and requests that the victim transfer a large sum of money to a certain account so that he can verify the victim's transactions.

Once the victim has completed the transaction, the scammer hangs up the phone and becomes completely invisible. Any digital communication associated with the scam, such as Skype communications, is destroyed to avoid detection, according to the press release.