Retired Pune Metro official loses Rs 40L after cybercrooks threaten arrest in child pornography, money laundering cases

Pune: A retired Pune Metro officer (75) from Pashan has lodged a complaint with the Baner police, stating that online fraudsters cheated him of Rs 48 lakh by threatening to arrest him in child pornography and money laundering cases between March 23 and April 13.The suspects posed as officials of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Mumbai Crime Branch.Senior inspector Chandrashekar Sawant of Baner police told TOI, "As soon as the complainant approached us, we uploaded his banking transaction details on govt's cybercrime portal. Following this, the accounts traced in the money trail were frozen. These were the first and second layers of accounts in the scam. There were over 20 such bank accounts.""The collective amount of money in these accounts was Rs 40 lakh," Sawant said.Sawant added, "The suspects made a video call to the elderly on his messaging application. Initially, the conmen claimed that they were officials of TRAI. They alleged that the retired officer was involved in child pornography and had transmitted many such clips on social media sites. They claimed that they would soon arrest him in the case.""Later, the suspects sought details of his bank account for verification purposes. The retired officer shared his bank account details. The suspects then claimed that his bank account had been used by fraudsters and a former aviation businessperson for money laundering and transactions running into a few crores of rupees," Sawant said."They threatened to arrest him in both cases and also sent him a fake arrest warrant. They threatened to defame him by arresting him," he said.Later, they promised not to arrest him and to settle the cases against him. "The fraudsters then shared details of five bank accounts with the retired officer, and he transferred Rs 48 lakh to these accounts," he added.
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