A woman here was allegedly duped of ₹20 lakh by fraudsters posing as police officers, officials here said on Tuesday.
The victim, a resident of Sector 43, received a call on March 3 from someone claiming to be from a courier company. The caller told her that a parcel from her had been confiscated by Customs since it contained illegal items, they said.
The caller also told her that her call would be transferred to Mumbai Police.
The next callers claimed to be “Deputy Commissioner of Police Balsing Rajput” and “Inspector Ajay Bansal” from the Mumbai Police’s cyber crimes unit.
The duo claimed that the victim’s Aadhaar had been used in multiple “criminal transactions and money laundering cases” from her three “additional bank accounts” in Mumbai. On being told that she did not have a bank account in Mumbai, the duo asked the victim to make a transaction to validate her accounts.
“They asked me to transfer ₹4,99,999 and said this is a secret code to start a financial investigation,” the victim said in her police complaint.
After transferring the money, the duo told the victim to transfer more money as “security deposit” to carry out an “inertia financial check”.
“I transferred ₹20,37,194 in six transactions…,” she alleged.
Based on her complaint, an FIR was registered against unknown persons under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the IT Act at Cyber Crime (East) police station on Monday.
The police said a probe is underway.