‘Letter’ with PM’s photo, greed of Rs 2 crore… and in 9 months all the savings of an aunty were cleared! – ..

A heart-wrenching story of fraud has come to light from Hyderabad, which is a big warning for all of us. A vicious gang of cyber thieves targeted a 77-year-old elderly woman and within 9 months, gradually stole Rs 1.8 crore from her account.

To commit such a big fraud, this gang sometimes described itself as a ‘big businessman’ of the country and sometimes as a big official of RBI.

How did this game of deception begin?

This whole game started with a WhatsApp call in February. Someone on the phone said in a very sweet voice, “Congratulations, you have won a lottery worth Rs 2 crore!”

Initially aunty ignored it, but the thugs did not give up. Two weeks later, another man called and identified himself as a ‘big businessman’. He took aunty into confidence while talking and asked her for bank account details to send the lottery money.

And then the real web of deception began…

When the thieves found out that net banking was not activated in aunty’s account, they cleverly sent her to the bank and got her net banking activated, and then also took her user ID and password.

After this he made another move. He sent aunty a fake ‘government letter’ with the photo of the Prime Minister, in which it was written that RBI has approved the transfer of Rs 2 crore. This one letter won aunty’s complete trust.

Controlled the phone and also broke the FD

The thieves, posing as RBI officers, also took copies of the Aadhar and PAN cards of the aunty and her husband. Not only this, he took complete control of aunty’s phone by sending a link.

After this, he played another emotional gamble. He said that “As per RBI rules, before depositing Rs 2 crore, some big amount should also be visible in your account.” By luring him with this, they made him lose his years of savings, i.e. his FD (Fixed Deposit).

In these 9 months between March and December, the thieves made 123 small transactions from 4 different bank accounts and withdrew all the money, so that even the bank did not have any suspicion.

How was this secret revealed?

This entire fraud came to light when aunty went to her bank for some work. When he got his passbook updated, the ground slipped from under his feet… now only Rs 6,000 were left in the account which should have contained crores of rupees.

When he tried to contact those phone numbers, they were all switched off. Only then did he realize that the biggest betrayal of his life had happened to him.

Police have registered the case and are investigating. But this incident teaches us all that greed and trust both have a price, which is sometimes more than our lifetime earnings.