75-year-old man loses ₹63.3 lakh to cyber fraudsters posing as ‘data protection board members’ and ‘Mumbai police personnel’

A 75-year-old man has lodged a complaint with the Central division cyber crime police in Bengaluru after being cheated of ₹63.30 lakh by cyber fraudsters who posed as officials from the ‘Data Protection Board’ and as personnel of the Mumbai Police.

According to the complaint, the victim received a phone call from a mobile number. The caller claimed that action was being initiated against him through the ‘Data Protection Board’. The caller alleged that the complainant was named in 20 cases and told him to cooperate with an ongoing inquiry.

Subsequently, a person identifying himself as ‘Sandeep’ contacted the complainant via WhatsApp video call. He claimed to be a ‘Mumbai Police officer’, and threatened the complainant with legal action.

Later, another individual, introducing himself as ‘George Mathew’, contacted the victim and told him to transfer money to certain bank accounts for the purpose of ‘verification’ and ‘investigation’, with the assurance that the entire amount would be refunded after the inquiry was completed.

Believing the claims to be genuine, the complainant transferred a total of ₹63,30,000 between February 7 and February 16, from his and his wife’s accounts to the accounts cited by the accused.

After the transactions were completed, the accused allegedly became unreachable by phone, which led the victim to realise that he had been cheated.

Police are trying to trace the accused and recover the money taken from the senior citizen.