Two duped of Rs. 57 lakh in online fraud

Two persons, including a businessman, were collectively duped of ₹57 lakh in separate cases of online fraud, police said on Wednesday.

While in the first case a businessman was allegedly duped of ₹42 lakh by his social media friend over a business proposal, in the second, a woman was duped of ₹15 lakh after she clicked on a link while searching for the customer care number of a courier company, they said.

According to the first FIR, a proprietor named Sunil Arora was defrauded of ₹42 lakh by one Shreya Joshi with whom he got in touch on Instagram in December last year.

"Shreya Joshi offered me a business proposal for saffron cumin oil and saffron powder supply to her own company in the USA. She asked me to contact Riya Sharma, proprietor of Sharma Product from Mumbai to procure materials as her products are approved in her company," he said.

"We procured and purchased the samples and after approvals from lab testing, Shreya helped me to release the purchase order against exports for USD 17,90,000. In the meantime, the client refused to purchase the materials without the advances. Shreya promised us the payments and asked us to start procuring the materials.

"Hence we transferred ₹42 lakh in instalments but after we transferred the money into her account she vanished and not taking calls nor replying to emails," Arora added.

An FIR was registered against Joshi and others under sections 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 66 D of the IT act cybercrime, east police station.

In the second case, one Rashmi Mantri was duped while she was looking for the customer care number of a courier company after her packet from Rajasthan got late.

On calling a number, the complainant was asked to send ₹5 on Google Pay on February 8 following which ₹15 lakh was withdrawn from her account in multiple transactions from February 9 to February 23. She learnt about the transactions after checking her statement on March 23.

An FIR was registered under sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 66-D of the IT Act at cybercrime, east police station on Tuesday.

The police said that they are verifying the facts and trying to identify the accused.