Cyber fraudsters dupe city firm of Rs 1.95 cr

 

 

Cyber fraudsters struck in a big way as they deceived an accountant of a city based well-known electronics firm to the tune of Rs 1.95 crore. The tricksters tricked the accountant by posing as owner of the firm and convinced him to transfer the amount. The incident happened with NGRT System Pvt. Ltd. which runs Inspire, the landmark showroom in Civil Lines. The showroom stocks Apple company’s products, known for their high value mobile handsets as well as laptops and other items. The complainant is Mahesh Dabir (54), a resident of Wathoda, who works as Accountant with the firm. Shantanu Gadre and Pranoti Gadre are the Directors of the firm.

 

Dabir, in his FIR, mentioned about receiving a call from a new number early morning on December 30, wherein the caller posed as Shantanu. The fraudsters adopted a very clever ploy to ensure that Dabir does not get suspicious. Prior to that, the trickster who posed as Gadre told Dabir about taking a new mobile number, and the ploy worked quite well. During the conversation, the trickster posing as Shantanu Gadre sought to know the current balance in the account and Dabir said he, believing that the person is the owner, readily shared the information. Thereafter, Dabir got to his regular work and on January 2, he received a message on WhatsApp from the same number directing him to transfer Rs 1.95 crore. The message gave account number with Axis Bank, it is registered in name of M/s V S Trading. Since Gadre was in Mumbai for a meeting, Dabir believed that former must be in need of money and immediately carried out the transaction.

 

The transaction was done by Dabir around 2.38 pm on January 2 and till that time, he was under the impression as to having received direction from the firm’s Director himself. Still, Dabir contacted Pranoti Gadre and mentioned the transaction and told about direction from Shantanu Gadre and also the talk about new mobile number. Shocked by the disclosure, Pranoti told Dabir that if that was the case, then Shantanu would have contacted her and mentioned about requirement of funds. Also, she said, Shantanu had not taken a new mobile number. Realising that fraud has been perpetrated, Dabir approached the local police and an FIR was registered with Cyber Police.

 

 

Quick thinking on the part of Pranoti Gadre averted a big fraud as equally quick response from Cyber Police led to freezing of Rs 1.20 crore that was in the bank. As soon as Dabir lodged the complaint, the Cyber Police team got into act, and they found that the trickster had kept the photo of Shantanu on the DP which easily convinced Dabir into believing the call was genuine. So, following the set protocols, the police contacted the bank officials and asked them to block further withdrawal or transfer of funds. But, by that time, the trickster had withdrawn about Rs 75 lakh from the Axis Bank account. Yet, had Dabir delayed the matter further in putting up the issue with the co-owner, probably, entire amount might have been made away by the fraudsters.