Hyderabad techie loses Rs. 10 lakh in FedEx courier scam
Hyderabad: A 24-year-old female software engineer in Hyderabad was scammed out of Rs. 10 lakh by fraudsters posing as FedEx and police officials.
The victim received an automated call claiming that a FedEx courier, allegedly sent from Mumbai to Taiwan in her name, contained banned substances –7 kg of medicine and 50 grams of MDMA. The scammers falsely stated that an FIR had been filed against her (Case No. NCBMUM2024/11024) and demanded her to file a complaint either in person in Mumbai or online.
The call was then transferred to a man named Prathap, who posed as both a Sub-Inspector and later a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP). To appear credible, he displayed a fabricated police ID over a Skype video call. He claimed that employees of ICICI Bank had leaked her personal information to a money launderer named Mohammad Islam Ali. They claimed that several unauthorized accounts had been opened in her name in different states, such as Mumbai and New Delhi, and showed her fabricated bank statements.
The victim was instructed to contact ICICI Bank’s customer care to enable online transactions and obtain a service request number (SR1018537756). While on the call with customer care, the fraudsters provided instructions through a Skype video chat on what to say to the bank representative.
Once the customer care activated her online transactions, the fraudsters coerced her into taking a pre-approved loan of Rs. 9,90,000, which was credited to her ICICI account. They assured her that the loan could be canceled later and directed her to add payees to her ICICI account and transfer Rs. 5,00,000 each via IMPS to two accounts. They shouted at her when she took time to add the account details.
She complied with all their instructions without realizing that she was being deceived. The fraudsters assured her that the unauthorized accounts would be frozen, and there were no criminal charges against her. Once the Skype call ended, Skype group named “1933 MUMBAI NCRB DEPARTMENT” being used by the scammers disappeared which made her realize that she had been scammed.
Following a complaint, the Cyber Crime department has registered an FIR (Cr. No. 8818/2024) under various sections 204,318(4), 335, 336(3) ,338, 340(2) BNS and Sec 66-C of IT Act 2000-2008 and are investigating.
