65-Year-Old Woman Falls Victim to ₹1.30 Crore Cyber Fraud: Elaborate Scheme Exposed

65-Year-Old Woman Falls Victim to ₹1.30 Crore Cyber Fraud: A 65 year old woman was duped of 1.30 crore by cyber fraudsters posing as officials from various organisations including Customs Department, Reserve Bank of India and International Monetary Fund.

The victim who lived in Chandivali area of Powai till June 2024 and then shifted to Byculla told police that her ordeal began in April 2023 when she met a stranger on an international dating app. The man introduced himself as Paul Rutherford claimed to be an American civil engineer working in Philippines.

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During their conversation Rutherford created a story about an accident at his construction site and told her he needed money to avoid deportation to US. She was convinced by his plea and sent him around 70 lakh in Bitcoin between April and June 2023, partly borrowing from her relatives. Rutherford had promised to return the money soon.

The scam escalated in June when Rutherford told her he had sent a parcel containing 2 million US dollars to her. Later she received a call from a person who introduced herself as Priya Sharma from Delhi airport. Sharma told her that a parcel addressed to her containing 2 million US dollars had been intercepted by Customs department.

Sharma asked her to pay various charges and taxes to get the parcel and asked her to transfer money to different bank accounts. Between June 2023 and March 2024 the victim paid the amount and transferred the money to the specified accounts.

A police officer in the case said, "The scam didn't end there." To extract more money the scammers posed as Bank of America officials and told her they had received the money released by Customs and had sent her an ATM card.

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Then she received calls from people claiming to be Ranjana from International Monetary Fund and Meera Bakshi from Reserve Bank of India. They asked her to deposit more money into various bank accounts to exchange dollars into Indian currency which they claimed was 17 crore.

Despite depositing 1,29,43,661 to the fraudsters she continued to get calls from new authorities or agencies. As she was getting suspicious she finally realized she was duped.

The victim approached the cyber police and as she was staying in Chandivali earlier an FIR was registered at West Region Cyber police station under relevant sections of IPC and IT Act.

"We have initiated the investigation but have yet to uncover any leads to trace the fraudsters," the police officer said.

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