Bengaluru techie loses Rs 2.24 crore to cyber fraudsters posing as Customs and NCB officials

Bengaluru: A 52-year-old software engineer has lost Rs 2.24 crore to the cyber fraudsters who swindled him by posing as Delhi Customs and Narcotics Control Bureau officials, police said on Thursday.

This incident comes close on the heels of a 29-year-old woman lawyer from Bengaluru losing Rs 14.57 lakh who ended up stripping on Skype video conference before the fraudsters.

The mode of operation adopted by the fraudsters to dupe Kumarasamy Sivakkumar from Jakkur was similar to the one faced by the woman lawyer.

The swindlers called the software engineer between March 18 to March 27 saying that they were from Customs Department and that an air parcel from Delhi to Malaysia in his name has been held back at Delhi Airport since it carried 16 passports, 58 bank ATM cards, and 140 gram Ecstasy drug tablets (also known as MDMA, a banned narcotic), police said.

The call was then supposedly transferred to the ‘Narcotics Control Bureau’ where the ‘officer’ forced him to download Skype, come online, police said, adding that later, the fraudsters told him that if he wanted to get rid of the case then he should transfer them money.

Sivakkumar told police that he paid Rs 2.24 crore in eight installments through Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and Immediate Payment Service (IMPS).

The victim realised that he had been cheated only on April 5 and then approached police to lodge a complaint against the unknown fraudsters at the Bengaluru North East Cyber Crime Police Station.

According to police sources, since the beginning of the month about 25 people have fallen prey to the fraudsters and lost over Rs four crore in just the North East Cyber Crime Police Station limits. In most of the cases, a similar mode of operation was adopted, they added.