Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Bhubaneswar, unearthed a racket wherein several people were duped of crores of rupees through fake calls from fraudsters pretending to be officials of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), CBI, Police, and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The matter came to light after Ratna Tripathy, a resident of the Nayapalli area in Bhubaneswar, lodged a complaint in this regard. Tripathy alleged that she received a phone call (VoIP call) on June 19 wherein the caller introduced himself as an employee of FedEx, Hyderabad. He told her that a parcel containing six passports, one laptop, five ATM cards, and 150 grams of narcotics drugs sent to her has been intercepted by NCB officials in Mumbai.
Tripathy, however, denied sending or ordering any parcel. Following this, the caller asked her to go to the Narcotic
Bureau Cell, Mumbai, personally to clarify her point and if she cannot attend physically, she can be connected to one Mr Gill of Narcotic Bureau, Mumbai, over Skype. Tripathy was further told that if she ignored this she would be prosecuted under various charges, including narcotics cases and money laundering, etc.
Accordingly, Tripathy connected to Skype, the purported site of the Mumbai Narcotic Bureau, and a person who introduced himself as Mr Gill, Head of the Narcotic Bureau Cell, Mumbai, told her that a case of money laundering, narcotics smuggling, and violation of crypto norm has been filed against her due to the illegal transactions through her bank accounts. They also told her that she has links with gangster Islam Malik.
Subsequently, Tripathy was made to talk to one Dr Balsing Rajput, IPS, DCP, Cyber Crime, who showed her a document issued by the CBI and a letter with the seal of RBI that mentions her involvement in money laundering. The latter suggested that if she wants to prove her innocence, she has to send an amount of Around Rs 1.5 lakh to the given account number of FDRBI of RBI for verification. Further, she was assured that if nothing illegal/suspicious is found with her bank transactions, the amount will be returned to her within 15 minutes.
A shocked and panicked Tripathy sent the amount from her bank accounts through UPI and IMPS. During the conversation for the next 10 to 15 minutes, she was given the clean chit but the caller went offline, and her money was never returned as assured.
The Bhubaneswar wing of the EOW has, meanwhile, registered a case at the EOW police station Case No 20/2023 Under Sections 419/420/467/468/471/120-B IPC, R/w Section 66 (D) of IT Act, 2000, on the report of Ratna Tripathy and launched an investigation.
During the investigation, it was found that the entire thing is a huge scam using the name of courier companies and faking as NCB, CBI, ED, Police officer, etc. Hundreds of people, across the country, are being extorted huge amounts of money. As the scammers use the name of real NCB/ CBI/ ED/ IPS officer people tend to believe them as genuine. However, they don’t show their face in the video chat. They use fake identity cards/ certificates etc. which further emboldens the belief that they are genuine.
The probe found that the amount deposited by the victim landed in a mule account of one Jagdamba Enterprises in Punjab. It was also found that scammers, in just 2-3 days, had extorted Rs 5.58 crore (from many victims across the country using this single account). However, this money was further transferred to different mule accounts and ultimately a major chunk of this amount was withdrawn through ATM in Dubai, UAE.
During the investigation, EOW has frozen 17 bank accounts involved in this fraud. Further steps are being taken to identify the real mastermind of this scam and the fraudsters sitting in Dubai.
Meanwhile, the EOW has issued an advisory to help people fall prey to such scams. The advisory is as below:
- Never believe such callers/scammers. Nothing will happen if you have not done anything wrong.
- NCB/ CBI/ ED/ Police don’t make such calls or Skype chats.
- Always insist on calling on a normal phone, not VoIP/Whatsapp/ Skype, etc.
- Never transfer money unless you are 100% sure that this is not a scam.
- In the case of video chat, insist on showing the face of the caller.
- Don’t trust fake ID cards/certificates shown on these Chats. Cross-check it with official websites.
- If you find anything suspicious, please dial 1930 or file a complaint at cybercrime.gov.in or report to the local police or Dial 112.
