Man posing as NRI relative dupes Haryana man of Rs 3 lakh, held from Bihar
Haryana Police Saturday arrested a fraudster from Bihar for allegedly duping Kurukshetra resident of Rs 3 lakh by posing as his relative from abroad.
As per the police, Hardeep Singh, a resident of Kurukshetra, received a call from a person posing as his NRI relative who asked him for money citing some emergency. Hardeep transferred Rs 3 lakh into that person’s bank account. “However, as he realised that he had been cheated, he immediately filed a complaint on the cybercrime portal following which the Cyber Police Station in Panchkula registered a case and started probe,” an official spokesperson said.
The accused was traced and arrested from Bihar, police said, adding that the investigation revealed that he was part of a larger cyber fraud network.
“These fraudsters target random victims by posing as their NRI relatives. They ask them for money saying they are in trouble and need money to get out of the situation. Worried about their relatives, the victims transfer the money to the accounts provided by these fraudsters. This is what happened in Hardeep Singh’s case,” the spokesperson said.
“Cybercrime operates on social engineering. To stop this, there is a need for better cyber training and awareness among the public. The state police is organising cyber awareness programmes in each district,” said OP Singh, Additional Director General of Police, State Crime Branch, Haryana.
He said the the increasing awareness among the public can be gauged from the fact that in the first three months of this year (January to March), approximately 25,000 complaints related to cybercrime were filed. “We registered 531 cases and arrested 299 cybercriminals,” he said, urging people to be careful and not to trust calls or messages from unknown numbers or any suspect posing as someone they know.
