Mumbai: A 37-year-old woman who runs a medical shop had recently become a victim of courier fraud, wherein scammers targeted her through a group of people who coordinated to scam her over WhatsApp/Normal calls, pretending to be customer care operators of a courier company as well as police officials, and induced her to pay money by putting her under fear.
The unique modus operandi used by the accused in this case is that one of the accused involved had actually met the victim and managed to get her contact details, only to dupe her later.
Duped with fake gift parcel
According to the police, the victim is a resident of Kalyan. On May 25, around 5:50 pm, when the victim was at her shop, a customer came to buy a bottle of water and while leaving, the victim saw that some article had fallen on the floor from the customer's bag. The victim then alerted the customer about the said article, after which the customer told his name to the victim and also thanked her for the help. He also took the victim's visiting card and then left. Three days later, the victim received a message from the said customer, informing her that as a mark of gratitude, he had sent her a gift parcel.
On May 31, the victim received a call from a person claiming to be an employee of a courier company. The caller told the victim that her parcel had arrived and that she would have to pay certain charges to claim the parcel. The victim refused to claim the parcel, after which the caller threatened that she would have to face a police enquiry. The victim was then induced to pay Rs 2.70 lakh on various pretexts. Later, when the demand for money continued, the victim realized she had been duped and lodged a police complaint under sections 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation by using a computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.
