Hyderabad man loses Rs.10 lakh in FedEx parcel scam
Hyderabad: A 44-year-old man, a private employee from Hyderabad, fell for a parcel scam, losing Rs. 10 lakh. He has lodged a case with the Hyderabad Cyber Crime police.
According to the complaint, the victim received a call allegedly from FedEx courier services. The caller, who claimed to be a representative of the shipping service giant, told him that his Aadhaar number was being misused.
The fraudster also claimed that a parcel containing 2 kg of clothes and 150 strips of LSD was booked from Mumbai to Singapore and the Mumbai Crime Branch had intercepted the parcel and raised a complaint (MH1085/1124).
The fraudster stated that a person named Mohd. Ismail Malik was involved in illegal activities and he had used 400–500 bank accounts for fraudulent purposes. Furthermore, 29 bank officials had been arrested in connection with this case.
The call was then transferred to an individual who pretended to be calling from the Mumbai Narcotics Department. During the call, the victim was forced to download the Skype app and call the scamster on the given Skype ID. They shared a fake ID card with him as proof of the call’s authenticity and requested the victim to provide his Aadhaar card and bank account details, including the balance, for verification purposes. They proceeded to threaten the victim demanding a transfer of Rs. 5 lakh through RTGS.
The victim informed the fraudster that RTGS does not allow transactions above Rs. 2 lakh at a time. He was then coerced into transferring Rs. 5 lakh. When the victim attempted the transaction, it was declined with a message stating, “Declined due to security reasons.”
The fraudster then explained that the victim’s account was allegedly used multiple times by Mohd. Ismail Malik and his associates, which triggered the “security reasons” message. Convinced by the explanation, the victim transferred the amount through IMPS and expressed concerns about potential tax issues.
He was assured that a letter would be sent to the Income Tax Department explaining the transactions after the issue was resolved. Consequently, the victim transferred the entire amount to the fraudster’s bank account, believing it to belong to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) but the central bank does not maintain personal accounts.
The victim was not allowed to answer a phone call from his wife during the conversation with the fraudster stating that the situation was a security issue and must be dealt with immediately. This behavior made the victim suspect the fraudsters and he searched online for any recent reports about fraudulent FedEx deliveries. To his shock, he found a news article about a woman being duped in a similar scam. Realizing that he had been scammed, the victim filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime police.
