News Mania Desk/ Piyal Chatterjee / 9th October 2024
A sophisticated cyber fraud scheme claimed the life of a 65-year-old woman who lost ₹1.30 crore to con artists acting as representatives of the Customs Department, Reserve Bank of India, and International Monetary Fund, among other organizations. The victim informed authorities that her trauma started in April 2023 when she met a stranger on an international dating app. The victim lived in the Chandivali district of Powai till June 2024 when she moved to Byculla. A man posing as Paul Rutherford identified himself and said he was an American construction engineer employed in the Philippines.
In their chats, Rutherford made up an accident at his construction site that killed someone and claimed he needed money to stay out of the country. After being persuaded by his argument, the woman borrowed some money from family members and transferred him about ₹70 lakh in Bitcoin between April and June of 2023. Rutherford had assured them he would swiftly return the funds.
When Rutherford told the woman he had sent her a package containing two million US dollars in June, the plot intensified. Then she got a call from someone claiming to be Priya Sharma, ostensibly from the airport in Delhi. Sharma stated that the Customs agency had intercepted a package meant for the victim that contained two million US dollars.
Sharma directed the woman to send money to many bank accounts and told her to pay a variety of fees and taxes in order to obtain the package. The victim complied, depositing the needed amounts into the designated accounts between June 2023 and March 2024.After that, the victim started getting calls from people posing as Meera Bakshi from the Reserve Bank of India and Ranjana from the International Monetary Fund. Seeking to convert dollars into Indian rupees, they demanded additional deposits into many bank accounts totaling ₹17 crore.
Despite transferring a total of ₹1,29,43,661 to the crooks, the woman continued to get calls from alleged new authorities or agencies. She eventually became suspicious and realized she had been tricked. After the victim contacted the cyber police, a FIR was filed at the West Region Cyber Police station under the applicable provisions of the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code because the victim had formerly lived in Chandivali.
