Ahmedabad: Cybercriminals have found a new, insidious means to cheat: they pose as election officials, cite voter-list problems, and hack phones of their targets, one of whom was a 63-year-old duped of Rs 10.4 lakh.Bopal police registered an FIR on Wednesday based on the complaint of the resident of Shela, who works as a senior marketing executive in a private firm.According to the complaint, the fraud occurred on July 24 when the executive received a call from a person who identified himself as Shrikant from the “election department”.The caller claimed that during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), he found a discrepancy related to the name of the executive’s father-in-law.The caller already had details of the executive, his wife, and her father. The executive was asked to provide the spellings of his and his family members’ names, voter ID numbers, and addresses.After some time, the executive received another call from an unknown number. As soon as he answered, his mobile phone allegedly froze, and the screen turned black. But the caller was able to ask for the same details that the executive had given earlier.Soon after, the executive received an alert about a Rs 1.9 lakh transaction on his credit card. When he questioned the callers, they denied any transaction. Suspecting fraud, he tried to disconnect the call but couldn’t. He eventually removed the sim card from his phone.He subsequently contacted the customer care numbers of his two credit card issuers and learnt that multiple transactions had been carried out. Police said Rs 5.9 lakh had been transferred through one credit card and Rs 4.5 lakh through another.The victim told police that he had not shared an OTP, installed any application, nor clicked any link.PointersModus operandi: What went wrong?Fraudsters posed as election officials and cited an SIR-related discrepancy to gain trustThe accused already knew family details, making the callers appear genuine to the victimA second call allegedly caused the mobile phone to freeze and the screen to turn black.Multiple credit-card transactions followed, even though the victim neither shared OTPs nor clicked links
