Ahmedabad: A scientist from Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) lost Rs 10 lakh to cybercrooks who called her up, saying drugs were found in a parcel sent in her name. The incident took place on May 24, according to an FIR filed with Cybercrime police on Sunday.
Shivanshi Gupta, 27, a resident of PRL Residencies in Vikramnagar on Ambli-Bopal Road, said in her FIR that she got a call from a man who identified himself as Amit Kumar, an employee at a courier company.He told her that illicit items were found in a parcel which was sent in her name from Mumbai to Thailand.
Gupta said in the FIR that she thought that someone from the PRL might have sent the courier and asked for more details. She was told that they found five expired passports, three credit cards, one laptop, four kg of clothes and 140 grams of psychotropic drugs in the parcel.
He then connected her with a man who posed as an officer from Mumbai Cyber Crime branch. The latter asked her to visit his office in person for police verification and later told her that she could also undergo the process through a video call. Both the men who spoke to her had her Aadhaar number. The man posing as cop made a video call to her, got her to download a screen-sharing app (remote access software) and asked her to show him her bank statements. He then got her to transfer Rs 99 to a bank account and assured her that the money would be returned if she was proven innocent. A while later, the video call was abruptly disconnected and she found that Rs 10 lakh was debited from her account.
She immediately called up the Cybercrime helpline and registered her complaint. Around four months later, Cybercrime police registered a complaint of breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy under the IPC, and under the Information Technology Act, against unknown accused persons.
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