Online fraudsters dupe Hyderabad girl

The cyber criminals told the 18-year-old girl that she won Rs 35 lakh, a lucky winner of Kaun Banega Crorepati, and asked her to deposit Rs 1.5 lakh toward tax clearances in order to claim the prize money

Hyderabad: An 18-year-old girl student from Old City in Hyderabad was deceived by the cyber offenders with Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) prize of Rs 35 lakh. Sana Shabal studying in intermediate second year is a resident of Chandrayangutta.

In December 2015, Sana, who was a regular visitor to an internet cafe, was surprised when she saw a mail from an unknown person stating that she was the lucky winner of KBC prize worth Rs 35 lakh.Initially though the girl suspected the mail, the poor Sana got convinced when the mailer told her phone number and also the SIM card number, which would be generally known only to the concerned officials of the service provider.

When the girl replied asking how to claim the prize money, the mailer asked her to deposit Rs 1.5 lakh towards tax clearances after which the prize money would be deposited in her bank account. The girl then discussed the same with her father, who supported her decision.

She deposited Rs 9,000 and Rs 25,000 separately in the bank accounts of the Mumbai based persons. After depositing the money, she received repeated calls from three persons claiming to be Vicky Mishra, Vijay Kumar and Raj Verma of Mumbai and working for KBC, asking her to deposit the remaining money.

When she told that she cannot deposit more, they switched off their mobile phones. The girl realised that she got cheated and lodged a complaint with the city cyber crime police. During investigation, the police recovered the chats and pictures of cheque and a certificate sent to the victim, but the girl did not had receipts of money deposited in the bank accounts of accused persons.

Cyber Crime Inspector KVM Prasad said the accused have sent the images of fake certificates made using some software. The girl was unaware of the technological advancements and she got convinced when she saw pictures of heroes and models on the images she received and paid the money.

The accused, those made the fake certificates were not good at English. They used ‘lotry’ instead of lottery and ‘uproved’ instead of approved. The victim was also not aware of these and she was amused on knowing about huge prize money, the inspector said.

“The girl deposited money through ATM machines and she lost the deposit receipts. It is Nigerian fraudsters’ modus operandi. Investigation is on to locate the accused using their call data records,” the inspector said.