Hyderabad: A section officer working in the Telangana state Assembly was duped by cyber fraudsters who fooled him into believing that they would give him Rs 12 lakh or a car, in a lottery that he won for purchasing a tablet from an e-commerce website.
C. Anil Kumar, a resident of Rahmathnagar in Yousufguda purchased a tablet in March from Naaptol and received a call a few days later from a stranger claiming to be Rajeev Sharma, an administrative assistant with Naaptol.
Rajeev informed Anil that he can claim Rs 12 lakh cash or a car of the same value and Anil was interested in taking cash. The stranger then collected his bank account details and identification card details through WhatsApp and made the latter believe that the lottery was real. Anil deposited Rs 12,000 towards registration charges and Rajeev sent back the picture of his fake Aadhaar card and Naaptol employee identification card.
“Rajeev continued demanding money towards interstate income tax, GST, insurance, media charges, RBI charges and military charges. Anil had deposited Rs 8.18 lakh in 14 instalments in five bank accounts in the last three months. When he demanded his gift, Rajeev and two other strangers turned off their mobile.
Later, another person posing as an SBI bank manager started calling him, asking him to deposit more money,” said cyber crime inspector K.V.M. Prasad. The inspector added that all lottery related calls that the public receive from strangers posing as employees of e-commerce websites are from Bihar. The bank accounts, in this case, are also from Bihar. A case has been registered and efforts are on to trace the accused.
