A 71-year-old woman from Jogeshwari was allegedly cheated of nearly ₹10 lakh by cyber fraudsters who tricked her with a fake gas bill payment link. The Oshiwara Police have registered a case under charges of cheating and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act against an unidentified cybercriminal.
According to police, the complainant, lives in Jogeshwari with her husband. The couple holds a joint account in a private bank. On September 16, complainant received a message on her phone stating that her piped gas connection would be disconnected if she did not make an immediate payment.
When she called the number mentioned in the message, the person on the other side claimed to be speaking from her gas agency. He sent her a link and instructed her to make the payment through it. He assured her that once the payment was made, the gas connection would not be disconnected.
The elderly woman tried to pay through the link, but the transaction failed as she did not receive the required OTP. Later, she received another call from an unknown number, asking her to make the payment the next day. Believing it to be genuine, she paid her gas bill the following day and got busy with her household work.
However, a few hours later, she received messages from her bank notifying her of seven online transactions. To her shock, a total of ₹9.94 lakh had been debited from her account. The fraudster had obtained her banking details through the bogus payment link and siphoned off the money.
Realising she had been cheated, the woman approached Oshiwara Police and lodged a complaint. After verifying the details, the police registered a case of cheating and cyber fraud. Senior officers have directed the Cyber Cell to conduct a parallel investigation. Police said efforts are on to trace the bank account where the fraudulent transactions were routed.