Techie tries to sell sofa online, loses ₹ 9.6 lakh

The East Division police on Saturday registered an FIR against a conman who, posing as a customer, offered to buy a sofa which was up for sale online from a 32-year-old software engineer, made away with ₹9.6 lakh .

Based on the complaint by a resident of HAL 2nd stage, the police charged the accused under IT Act and also under section 318(4) (through cheating, dishonestly induces another person to deliver property or create/alter/destroy a valuable security or anything convertible into one) of BNS for further investigation.

The complainant told the police that she had posted an ad on an online marketing site to sell a two seater sofa for ₹12,000 on July 7. A few hours later a person who identified himself as Mukesh contacted her that he is interested in buying sofa.

After enquiring about the price and negotiating a little, they sealed the deal .

Later, he called her and said that he will make an advance token amount and the victim shared her mobile number which was linked to her bank account. He then allegedly convinced her to transfer ₹12,000 multiple times claiming that it will be credited to her account, and the final amount debited crossed ₹9 lakh. When she checked with the bank, she learnt that the money had been transferred to four different accounts outside the State.

Police suspected that the money was sent to mule accounts which have been withdrawn and diverted to other accounts to withdraw. The police advised people not to make any bank transactions with unknown people and call 1930 cybercrime help line to report .

The police are now trying to track down the accused through money trail and call record details .