School teacher loses Rs 4 lakh in online fraud

PUNE: A 34-year-old unsuspecting teacher from Sangvi lost Rs 4 lakh to an online fraud after befriending a person on a social networking site in September last year.
The incident came to light after the woman’s complaint was transferred from the cyber cell of the Pune police to the Sangvi police on Tuesday. “The woman is a teacher with a city-based school for special children,” police said.
As per the complainant, one Mark Kelly from London had sent her a friend request on a social networking site on September 12, 2016. “After the woman accepted the request, the man coaxed her into sharing her cellphone number. Thereafter, the duo started chatting through a mobile app. After four days, the man invited the complainant to visit him in London,” Arvind Jondhale, inspector of the Sangvi police station, told TOI.
Since the woman did not possess a passport, she declined the request. “While chatting with the woman on September 17, he told her that he was sending a few gifts to her. He even sent photographs of the gift items, including some jewellery, a laptop, a purse, a pair of shoes, a smartphone and a box containing 25,000 pounds, to the woman. Also, he requested the woman to share her mailing address with him,” the officer said.
On September 19, the complainant received a call on her cellphone from a woman who claimed to be a customs official. “She told the complainant that her parcel has arrived from London, but she needed to pay a fine of Rs 25,000 since the parcel weighed more than the one mentioned in the rules. Thereafter, the official gave her a bank account number, to which the complainant transferred the asked amount without further delay,” Jondhale said.
“The same official called up the complainant the next day, telling her that a case has been registered against her since the parcel illegally contained 25,000 pounds. To avoid legal action, the officer asked the woman to transfer Rs 70,000 to two different bank accounts. The woman did as she was told,” Jondhale said.
Soon after, the same official called up the woman again and told her to give details of her bank account. “She told the woman that she needed her bank account details to transfer 25,000 pounds,” he said, adding that the official called up the woman again on September 20, telling her that she needed to convert the pounds in Indian currency, for which the complainant was required to deposit Rs 1.85 lakh.
Jondhale said the woman deposited the entire amount in tranches into two bank accounts provided by the customs official. “On September 23, the official called up the woman to inform her that the parcel money has been converted into Indian currency and has been transferred to the Reserve Bank of India, for which she would get an email from the bank.
Later, the woman received an email with a link of an online money transfer form. “After filling up the form, the woman was asked to mention CoT (cost of transfer) code, for which she called up the customs officer who demanded Rs 1.20 lakh from her to give the code,” Jondhale said.
The woman borrowed Rs 1 lakh from one of her friends and transferred the asked amount to three different accounts. All in all, the woman transferred Rs 4 lakh to eight different bank accounts in six days between September 20 and 26. Later, she received another email demanding Rs 80,000 for revealing the code. “This is when the woman got suspicious and narrated the entire incident to her brother, who took her to her bank to find that she has been duped.