81-year-old doctor in Kochi allegedly loses ₹1.3 crore in cyber fraud

In another example of cyber fraudsters targeting elderly people, an 81-year-old doctor in the city was defrauded of £1.3 billion by criminals posing as CBI officers. Kochi City Cyber ​​Crime police registered a case and launched an investigation into the incident following a complaint from the victim, a resident of an apartment building on Chathyath Road.

The first information report (FIR) also named Devilal Singh and Pranav Dhayal as accused along with some unknown persons.

According to the FIR registered on Thursday, the accused, who claimed to be a CBI officer, contacted the complainant via phone and WhatsApp at 10.30 am on November 11 and 3.30 pm on November 6 and told her that some criminal acts were being committed using another phone number in her name.

On November 4, the defendant told the doctor that a case had been opened for the crimes and obtained details of his investments from him, claiming that they wanted to control the sources of his income. After this, the fraudsters managed to force the victim to transfer ₹ 1.3 crore from his bank account to another account. They also threatened to spread her photos and other details on social media if she revealed the incident to others.

Bank freezes account

A senior police officer said around £1bn of the scammed money had been frozen by the bank concerned, preventing further withdrawals or transactions of the amount. The police officer said that the money can be recovered through necessary procedures and legal steps.

The case was registered under Sections 316 (criminal breach of trust), 318 (cheating) and 351 (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Section 66D of the IT Act, which deals with cheating by impersonation using computer resources.

The incident comes just after police arrested at least 284 people as part of Operation Cy-Hunt, a statewide operation targeting those involved in organized cyber fraud crimes. Many of them were arrested for allegedly assisting in the transactions of large sums of money obtained through cyber financial fraud.

Last month, Mattanchery police had launched an investigation into a fraud case in which a 59-year-old woman lost 2.88 billion rupees. A native of Maharashtra has been arrested in the case.