Delhi police registers FIR over fake UAE embassy website

Delhi Police cyber cell has registered First Information Report (FIR) against unidentified persons for creating fake website of the UAE embassy in India. The special cell of Delhi police registered FIR under IPC Sections 419 (forgery), 420 (cheating) and Sections 66 (c) and 66(d) of the Information Technology Act after receiving a complaint from undersecretary (Gulf division) in Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), reports Indian Express.

According to the complainant, Ms Nisha of MEA received a note from the UAE embassy in which they have raised concerns about some miscreants, who had duped as Indian citizens, taking money from people on the pretext of providing them special approval for their return to the UAE. The complainant has also attached all the complaints which they received with her complaint to the police.

"They have created a fake website of the embassy, using fake email id of the UAE Ambassador's office and also a number on WhatsApp," the Indian Express report quoted a senior police officer saying.

Earlier, the UAE embassy in New Delhi on July 28th had tweeted from their official handle, "Fake website of UAE Embassy in India blocked after COVID-19 travel scam."

Delhi police during the investigation found that the fraudsters were using the fake website with a name of http://www.uaeembassy.in while the original link is https://www.mofaic.gov.ae/en/missions/new-delhi. Whenever people started searching for the UAE Embassy on Google from India, the link of the fake website was the first one that pops up and they started communicating with the user," the report further quoted an an officer saying.