Surat: A 55-year-old woman from Adajan was cheated of Rs 73 lakh by cyber criminals who accused her of being linked to terror funding, money laundering and hawala transactions while posing as officials from multiple law-enforcement agencies.Surat cybercrime police registered an FIR and launched an investigation into the case.According to the complaint, the woman got a call from an unknown number on Sep 30. The woman caller, claiming to be from the Data Protection Board of India, told her that several suspicious mobile numbers had been issued using her Aadhaar card. The call was transferred to one Avinash Patel, who claimed that 20 mobile numbers had been obtained using her documents in Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, Rajasthan and Nashik in Maharashtra.Patel connected her to a man who introduced himself as Gajendra Rajput, an officer of Panchvati police station in Nashik.Rajput sent her a complaint purportedly lodged by 20 people and threatened her with arrest. He also forwarded a fake letter on the Mumbai Police letterhead and claimed that she was involved in Popular Front of India (PFI) terror funding, money laundering and hawala transactions.The woman was told that Rs 2 crore had been routed through 247 bank accounts across the country and Rs 20 lakh had been credited to an account opened using her documents. She was sent a photograph showing two people in police custody with a stack of ATM cards, and that one of the cards was issued in her name.The accused then asked her to remain available through WhatsApp calls and messages if she wanted to avoid arrest for 180 days. As she complied, they got her to give them details of her bank accounts, fixed deposits, property, gold and other assets in the guise of their ‘investigation’.The fraudsters learnt that her husband had died a few years ago and that her children lived abroad. They teased out information about a locker containing documents, gold and cash.They told her to keep the matter confidential, describing it as a “secret probe”. The woman was persuaded to transfer money from her bank accounts and fixed deposits. The accused also made her take gold loans of Rs 29.34 lakh and Rs 15.79 lakh from Fedbank Financial Services Ltd (Fedfina) and transfer the funds to accounts specified by them.The accused kept sending her letters and acknowledgements purportedly from the National Investigation Agency, Enforcement Directorate, Reserve Bank of India and Supreme Court to gain her confidence and pressure her into making further payments.When her funds were exhausted, she was asked to deposit another Rs 30 lakh through a “Security Deposit Committee Order” purportedly from Supreme Court.The woman finally realised that she had been cheated and called the cybercrime helpline on 1930 on Oct 21. Based on her complaint, Surat cybercrime police registered an FIR on Oct 26.
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