Mumbai: An 82-year-old homemaker living in an upscale suburban highrise was duped of Rs 1.3 crore by cyberfraudsters, who claimed they were holding a “judicial inquiry” online. She made payments over the course of a fortnight to realise something was amiss only when the scammers stopped taking her calls and switched off their phones. Cyber Police have registered an FIR .
The senior citizen has said that on Nov 29, 2024 she got a WhatsApp call from a number not in her contacts list. The caller introduced himself as Rajveer Kundra and said he was a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) employee. He knew the name of the bank where she had an account. He accused her of using the account for money laundering. Then, one Rahul Gupta called her up on WhatsApp and said he was calling from the Supreme Court. He shared court documents with her name on them. She said she was convinced about the authenticity of their claims when a man in khaki uniform made a video call to her. His display picture had a police logo.
The elderly woman was told that she was being placed under “digital arrest” to investigate money laundering charges against her. She was forbidden from disconnecting their calls or disclosing the goings-on to anyone. If she failed to comply, she was warned of arrest in-person for leaking “official secrets”.
Over the next fortnight, as part of the “judicial inquiry”, the callers gathered details about her family, financial information, bank balance and income. They convinced her that she needed to transfer her wealth into a special account created by Reserve Bank of India, until the source of the wealth is ascertained.
The senior citizen followed their instructions and made the transfers totalling Rs 1.31 crore via RTGS and NEFT from her five bank accounts. Gupta assured her that the money would be refunded to her within six days, once the inquiry concerning her concluded.
But Gupta and Kundra’s numbers were not reachable thereafter. The senior citizen finally confided in her children who realised that she had been taken for a ride and helped her lodge an online complaint. After preliminary inquiries, an FIR was lodged.