Woman loses Rs 56,000 to vishing during local commute; three held

MUMBAI: A gang from Jharkhand that made vishing calls to unsuspecting bank customers and stole money from their accounts has been busted by the GRP Special Task Force. The GRP said the gang used to store the fraudulently gained money in digital wallets and gave access to these to a Navi Mumbai resident, Naresh Prasad, an accomplice in the racket.
Prasad would use the digital wallets to pay utility bills of residents in his neighbourhood and charged them money for the service.The police said they arrested three people in the case.
The case came to light after a victim of vishing calls approached the Borivli GRP post in December. Priya Rawal (24) was travelling in a Borivli local when she got a phone call from a man pretending to be a bank officer. She trusted him when he said he had her PAN and Aadhar number. He asked for a one-time password that she had received via SMS on her phone. When Rawal shared it, Rs 56,000 left her bank account.
After registering an FIR, the police contacted Rawal’s bank and found that her money had been fraudulently transferred into two digital wallets. The money had been used from the digital wallets for payment of power bills, mobile phone recharge and DTH service recharge. The police contacted the digital wallet providers. Based on details provided by the digital wallet providers, the police landed at Prasad’s home in Kalamboli.
He gave the police the names of his aides in Jharkhand. An STF team went to Jharkhand and nabbed two people, Prabhu Mandal (27) and Krishna Mandal (20).