In India’s tech capital Bengaluru, a 66-year-old man, the CEO and founder of a software company in the city, has lost a whooping Rs 2.3 crores after falling victim to a classic courier fraud.
As per a report in TOI, a person from CV Raman Nagar has filed a complaint with the East CEN Crime Police Station, against unknown persons. As per the complaint, the senior citizen and CEO got a call from an unknown number on February 6.
The unknown caller told the victim that they were calling from FedEx Mumbai and they repeated his name, Aadhar number, and mobile number to confirm his identity. The caller then told the victim that there is a parcel in his name and it contains clothes, 4 different passports, and 150 grams of an illegal narcotic substance known as MDMA.
The caller said that the parcel was being illegally sent to Shanghai, China and there was a case filed against the victim with Mumbai’s narcotics department at a police station in Andheri.
Another person introduced himself as Balaji Singh, DCP Crime Branch, at Andheri East police station. They asked the victim to come to Mumbai immediately if he wanted to escape arrest. At this point, the victim got scared and asked for help.
The callers then asked the victim to download a Skype app and connected with him via video call. The victim could see a full police station set up, with police personnel in uniforms working. The victim thought that the call and the case were all genuine.
The victim was told that there is a bank account linked with his Aadhar number and money laundering is happening from that account. He was further told that the Andheri police are watching and tracking the victim via their “sleeper cells”. The callers then told the victim that if he wanted to escape and prove his innocence, he should transfer all his money to the “RBI” and after the RBI “verifies” his money, it would be returned to him.
The callers then started sending bank account numbers and between February 7 and 14, he transferred Rs 30 lakhs, Rs 20 lakhs, Rs 10 lakhs, Rs 50 lakhs, Rs 30 lakhs, Rs 30 lakhs, Rs 50 lakhs and Rs 5 lakhs to 8 different bank accounts. After nearly 2.3 crore rupees were transferred, the Skype calls stopped.
The victim then realised that he had been conned and approached the police in Bengaluru for help.
A similar incident was reported in November 2023 when another senior citizen from Bengaluru was defrauded of Rs 1.5 crores via the same methodology of a parcel containing contraband and a Skype call.
In another case reported in January this year, a 70-year-old journalist was made to transfer Rs 1.2 crores to fraudsters posing as FedEx officials and telling a similar story of a FedEx parcel containing drugs.
On Jan 11 this year, an SIT of Bengaluru police arrested 13 persons from Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar fir running a racket carrying out the ‘FedEx courier’ scam. The SIT has been investigating over 300 cases of similar fraud and cheating.
