Woman loses ₹6.3 crore in alleged cyber fraud

In yet another alleged massive cyber fraud, a 77-year-old woman here was duped by a gang of ₹6.3 crore. The Kochi City cyber crime police have registered a case over the incident based on a complaint filed by the septuagenarian, a resident of Elamkulam.

According to the first information report (FIR) registered on Tuesday, the fraudsters contacted the woman over phone and WhatsApp between October 3 and December 16, pretending to be officers from the Mumbai police. They managed to get her transfer ₹6,38,21,864 from her bank accounts to the accounts they provided after convincing her that her bank accounts were involved in money laundering. They made her transfer the amount by making her believe that they required to verify her accounts.

The woman approached the police after realising that she had been cheated. Four people — Pradeep Jaiswal, Keerthi Sree, Ankith Tiwary, and Asok Mandela — have been named as accused in the FIR.

The accused have been charged under Section 316 (criminal breach of trust) and Section 318 (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Section 66D of the IT Act which deals with cheating by personation using a computer resource.