A 73-year-old woman from Noida was defrauded of Rs 1.3 crore by cybercriminals who tricked her into believing that a parcel addressed to her had been seized in Mumbai, containing illegal items, and that her Aadhaar card was linked to six accounts involved in money laundering.
Shuchi Agrawal, residing in Sector 49, filed a police complaint stating that on June 13, she received a call from an unknown number. The caller, a woman, claimed to be from the Andheri branch of Fedex courier company. Over the next five days, until June 17, Agrawal underwent a “digital interrogation.”
“They said that one of my parcels has been seized, in which some illegal items such as LCD, iPad, expired passport, and 5kg clothes have been found. The caller further said that I will have to come to Mumbai for this (to clear my name) or they will connect me through Skype to Mumbai Police’s narcotics department. The interrogation through Skype call went for five days,” Agrawal detailed in her complaint.
She further explained, “They said that my Aadhaar card is linked with the six accounts which are involved in money laundering. They kept on threatening me and asked me to transfer the money in the name of a police clearance certificate (PCC). They asked me to transfer the money to a different bank account. I did a transfer of a total of Rs. 1.30 crore.”
Agrawal provided the police with details of the bank account to which she transferred the money.
An FIR has been registered under sections 419 (cheating by personation) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code, along with section 66D of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008, at the Noida cybercrime police station. The investigation is currently underway.