Hyderabad techie duped by cyber crooks with false job promise

In another cyber crime incident, a 33 year old techie from Hyderabad was duped with false promises of a US based MNC job offer.

The techie, N Pratap from Kondapur who had many years of experience as a senior staffer at an MNC in Hyderabad was offered a job last November from a US based MNC at the company’s headquarters in California with a pay of $10,000, health insurance and two months annual paid leave. Pratap who always wanted to move to US with his family found the offer attractive after the ‘HR officials’ offered a job to his wife too.

As the selection process began, it ran for over four months as the ‘HR officials’ contacted him through hundreds of emails where Pratap was asked to pay for immigration, background checks, insurance and flight tickets.

Pratap transferred the money and received acknowledgements and receipts from the company’s ‘official email ID’. However, with the process not coming to an end, Pratap grew suspicious and contacted the police. With the realization hitting him that he had been duped, police found out that a professional gang of cyber crooks in 17 transactions had duped Pratap of Rs 22.18 lakh.

An investigation has begun by the Cyberabad cyber crime police officials who said that Nigerians could be behind this case. Police informed that all the money had been transferred to accounts in India and most of the account holders are from Maharashtra and northern parts of the country.

Creating fake websites, spoofing emails and forging documents – the crooks pulled it off without creating any doubt for the IT expert who has been working with a MNC for years, said a police official.