Surat: A 61-year-old retired man from Lalgate was allegedly cheated of Rs 14.74 lakh by cyber fraudsters who posed as bank officials on WhatsApp and lured him with a “senior citizen benefit card” before convincing him to install a malicious mobile application.Cyber Crime police have registered a complaint for cheating, forgery and related offences and launched an investigation.According to the complaint, the victim was in the Pal area on July 12 when he received two messages from an unidentified WhatsApp number stating, “Hi sir, How much limit required”.The WhatsApp account displayed the logo of a leading private bank, leading the complainant to believe he was interacting with a bank representative.Soon afterwards, he received a video call from the same number. During the call, the caller asked for his name and claimed to be contacting him on behalf of the bank. The caller then offered a senior citizen benefit card that supposedly provided benefits on fuel purchases, railway tickets and other services.When the complainant expressed interest, the caller inquired about the credit cards he used and asked him to show the card during the video call. The complainant displayed both sides of the card. The caller then asked him to verify whether the signature on the card was proper.The fraudster subsequently offered to increase the complainant’s credit card limit to Rs 10 lakh. After the complainant agreed, the caller sent a file with an .apk extension and instructed him to download and install it.According to the complaint, Rs 14.74 lakh was transferred from the complainant’s account in two transactions within minutes of the application being installed.Cyber Crime police are tracing the WhatsApp number and scrutinising the financial transactions to identify those behind the fraud.
