“I don’t know what came over me the day I transferred my savings to a bunch of cyber fraudsters… a mix of fear, confusion and anxiety perhaps. Today, I realise there were several red flags but I hadn’t paid attention.
“I was at home with my wife on April 11. Around 10.30am, a phone call came from an unknown number and a pre-recorded message said my parcel addressed to a foreign country had been returned. I was asked to press no. 1, which I did. A woman who called herself Sukruti Ravish came on the line. She said she was an employee of a courier company and a parcel linked to my Aadhaar number contained multiple passports and drugs. I assured her I had sent no such parcel but she read out my Aadhaar number, which was correct.
“Convinced, I said ‘yes’ when she asked if I would like the call to be transferred to the cyber cell. One Naresh Gupta came on the line next. He accused me of getting involved in criminal activities and directed me to log in to Skype. His Skype user ID had the words ‘Mumbai Police’. On Skype, I was given instructions to lock myself in a room and not interact with anyone. For the next 10 minutes, a man appeared on screen dressed in a khaki uniform and with the Mumbai Police logo behind him. His camera was switched off thereafter, but I was instructed to keep my cam on.
“I was then taken on a conference call with a ‘senior officer from a central agency’. I was told my Aadhaar number was linked to a money laundering racket involving a former state minister. The ‘politician’s photo’ was sent to me. I replied I never met him. But the scammers sent a notice.
“For 36 hours, I kept my cam on and followed their instructions. The scammers watched while I slept at night, calling me at 2.30am to inform my Skype call was disconnected and I would have to log in again. My wife wanted to know what was going on. I told her I was handling “some issue”; I was fragile. The scammers even knew that my son was based abroad. They inquired about my assets. Gripped with the fear of facing arrest if I did not cooperate, I blurted out exact details about my FDs, demat, mutual fund investments and bank balance, which collectively ran into crores. I was instructed to go over to my bank in person, liquidate my FDs and transfer money via RTGS to get my name cleared. I was assured 80% of the payment would be refunded, once verification revealed that I was innocent.
“I have friends in the police but it did not cross my mind to check with them. I just went to the bank and transferred Rs 35 lakh to the scammers. When no refund arrived, I gathered I had been duped. At the police station, I found digital detention scams were fairly common and people had been duped of crores. I learnt one should dial ‘1930’ if one is cyber-scammed.
“The helpline took down details of my transaction and got the perpetrators’ bank account frozen. But my ordeal was far from over. During the time a magistrate’s court took to grant me an order for getting back my money, the bank transferred the sum to a woman who had been cyber-scammed by the same individual. I have now filed an appeal. The key takeaway from the entire episode is to never act out of fear irrespective of who is on the phone. Always contact your local police station in-person to verify the identity of the caller. I would also like more people to be aware of the ‘1930’ helpline.” —As told to Nitasha Natu & Mateen Hafeez
