Daijiworld Media Network - Pune
Pune, Oct 11: An 80-year-old retired employee was allegedly cheated of Rs 5 lakh by a fraudster posing as an official of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and claiming that his voter ID card needed to be updated.
The victim, Kanjasheri Vaidyanathan Venkatesan, a retired employee of an automobile manufacturing company residing in Yerwada, received a call from the accused, who claimed to be from the ECI office.
According to police, the accused instructed the senior citizen to download an APK file on his mobile phone. After the file was installed, the fraudster allegedly gained access to the phone's screen, compromised his banking passwords and fraudulently transferred Rs 5 lakh.
A case has been registered at Lakshminagar Police Station under Sections 308, 318(4) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), along with Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the Information Technology Act. The identity and address of the accused have not yet been established, and the investigation is underway.
In a separate case reported in Pune in June, a retired IT professional was allegedly cheated of Rs 4.43 crore by fraudsters posing as investment experts on WhatsApp and Telegram.
The accused reportedly promised extraordinary returns from stock market investments and displayed fictitious profits exceeding Rs 26 crore on a fake online trading platform. The victim was allegedly persuaded to transfer money into multiple bank accounts for investment purposes.
According to the complaint, the victim, identified as Chaudhary, transferred a total of Rs 4,43,25,000 from his IDFC Bank account to 34 bank accounts over a period of time.
When he attempted to withdraw the money, the accused allegedly demanded a service charge equivalent to five per cent of the displayed profits. He was reportedly told that he would have to pay more than Rs 1 crore before any withdrawal could be processed.
The victim began suspecting fraud when the accused insisted on the additional payment as a condition for releasing the funds.