Man Loses Rs 50,000 After Message From Person Posing As Senior Official

A tehsildar was duped of Rs 50,000 when he got a message from a person posing as the district magistrate asking him to send the amount to a bank account on priority, officials said here on Tuesday.

The message was sent from a WhatsApp account with the DM's profile picture and name, they said.

Later when he contacted the DM, he realised that he had been duped by cyber criminals.

Police said the message was sent from an India number but being operated from Sri Lanka.

Additional Superintendent of Police Amit Kishore Srivastava said that a case has been registered against unknown people in the matter.

The amount transferred to a Bengaluru-based bank account has been put on hold and the process of refund has been initiated, police said.

Tehsildar (Sadar) Surendra Singh on Tuesday said that he was on duty for the Kanwar Yatra on Sunday evening when the incident happened.

He received a message from a WhatsApp number with the name and picture of Budaun District Magistrate Nidhi Srivastava, asking him to send Rs 50,000 to a bank account immediately.

Mr Singh said that he saw the message after about half an hour. By then, he received another message, asking him why the money had not been sent yet.

This made him nervous and without verifying the identity of the WhatsApp account, he transferred Rs 50,000 to the account mentioned.

After some time, he got another message still demanding the amount. This made him suspicious and he called up the district magistrate and asked her about it. Surprised by the tehsildar's queries, the DM clearly denied that she had sent any such message, police said. 

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