Senior citizens in Hyderabad swindled of nearly ₹2 crore by fraudsters posing as law enforcement, RBI officials | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: Fraudsters posing as law enforcement, telecom and banking officials have extorted about ₹1.89 crore from three senior citizens by threatening to arrest them in false criminal cases. On a complaint lodged by the victims, three separate FIRs have been registered at Cyberabad and Malkajgiri cybercrime police stations.In the first case, a 74-year-old victim from Neredmet lost ₹88.8 lakh. In her complaint to the Malkajgiri police on Wednesday, the victim said that she was first contacted by a fraudster claiming to be from the Data Protection Board of India on July 21. The fraudster alleged that her Aadhaar details had been misused, and connected the call to another accused posing as a police officer from Colaba police station in Mumbai. Falsely claiming that an FIR was registered against her in a money laundering case, the accused sent her a fake court order over WhatsApp and made her transfer over Rs 88.8 lakh between July 24 and Aug 13. “They asked me to transfer the amount for RBI verification, assuring me that it would be refunded. However, after the money was transferred, they cut off all communication,” the victim told police.In a similar complaint on Wednesday, a 77-year-old man from Sainikpuri alleged that he received a call on August 1 from a fraudster identifying himself as an official of the Data Protection Board in Mumbai. The fraudster claimed that a SIM card issued in the victim’s name had been linked to fraud and connected the call to others posing as Mumbai Crime Branch and Colaba police officials.The accused claimed that the complainant’s Aadhaar was linked to a bank account that had been used for illegal money transactions and terror financing, police said.“Other fraudsters posing as an IPS officer and an RBI official directed me to transfer funds from my bank account to accounts specified by them for verification. I closed fixed deposits and transferred over ₹68.8 lakh between Aug 6 and 12,” the victim told police.In the third complaint, a 73-year-old victim from Kondapur told Cyberabad police on Aug 17 that on July 24, he received a call from a person claiming to be from the telecom department in Mumbai. The caller accused him of sending inappropriate photos to women from his phone. Subsequently, other fraudsters posing as CBI officials alleged that a debit card issued in his name was used in a money laundering case, and asked him to appear at the CBI office in Mumbai. Under coercion, the victim transferred over Rs 31.6 lakh between Aug 1 and 5 to different bank accounts provided by the accused for ‘digital verification’.Based on the complaints, Malkajgiri and Cyberabad cybercrime police registered three separate cases under relevant sections of the BNS and the IT Act.