Cyber Scamsters Pose As Custom Officials, Dupe Doctor Of Rs 26.52 Lakh In Navi Mumbai

A medical doctor from Navi Mumbai has been defrauded of Rs 26.52 lakh by a cyber gang that threatened to implicate him in a fictitious crime involving money laundering and terrorism, police said on Wednesday.

On August 26, the doctor, a resident of Ghansoli, received a call from individuals posing as customs officers. They told him he had sent a parcel to Dubai which contained objectionable goods, including police uniforms and drugs, said senior inspector Gajanan Kadam of Navi Mumbai's cyber police station, where a complaint was lodged by the victim.

The fraudsters also informed him that they were referring his case to a police station in Mumbai's Andheri area. The scammers claimed his bank account was linked to terrorist activities and that it contained laundered money, said Kadam, citing the complaint.

They threatened he would be arrested for sedition. The victim was coerced into transferring Rs 26.52 lakh online to various bank accounts allegedly to settle the fabricated charges and clear the supposed money laundering issues, said the police officer.

However, the gang continued to demand more money. Realizing he had been scammed, the victim reported the fraud to the cyber police station.

The police have registered an FIR against unidentified fraudsters under various sections of the Information Technology Act, and launched a probe to track down the perpetrators and recover the stolen funds, the inspector added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)