Mumbai: A 48-year-old professor from Mumbai’s Kirti College fell victim to a cyber fraud and lost Rs1 lakh after a scammer, impersonating her husband, tricked her into transferring the money under false pretenses. The Dadar Police have registered a case against an unidentified individual and are currently investigating.
According to the FIR, Professor Deshmukh resides with her family near Churchgate, Mumbai. Her husband, Ajit, works at the Mantralaya. On September 3, while she was at college, she received multiple calls from an unknown mobile number.
During her lunch break, she answered the call. The caller told her in Hindi, "Your husband Mr. Ajit asked me to send Rs5,000 via GPay. Let me send you Rs1 first so you can confirm it."
Within minutes, she received a message stating that Rs50,000 had been transferred to her account. The caller phoned again and said, "I mistakenly sent Rs50,000 instead of Rs5,000, and requested her to return Rs45,000 to a Google Pay number.
Trusting the caller’s explanation and believing she was helping someone on her husband’s behalf, Professor Deshmukh transferred the money. Soon after, she received yet another call from the same number.
The scammer said, "The doctor I was supposed to send money to mistakenly transferred Rs55,000 to you. Kindly return it to the same GPay number." Believing the story again, she transferred Rs55,000.
It was only after calling her husband that Ashwini realized she had been duped. Her husband confirmed he had not asked anyone to transfer any money. Realizing the fraud, Ashwini promptly contacted the national cybercrime helpline number 1930 and lodged an online complaint. She later filed a formal complaint at the Dadar Police Station.
A case has been registered under sections 318(4) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), along with sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the Information Technology Act.
Police investigations are underway
