Pune: A 78-year-old retired officer of PMC was cheated of nearly Rs1.3 crore by cyber fraudsters who posed as officials from Mumbai police’s crime branch and threatened to implicate him in a money-laundering case.The complainant, a resident of Anandnagar on Sinhagad Road, lodged an official complaint with the police on Thursday. The cheating took place between Sept 30 and Oct 12 this year.Inspector Amol Dhas of Pune cyber police told TOI, “The caller identified herself as an officer with Mumbai crime branch and claimed that the retired Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) officer’s phone number was being used by another person in Mumbai. She alleged that this individual used his number to send obscene photographs and videos to numerous people, and claimed that a case had been registered in this connection.”Subsequently, the fraudsters told the victim that his bank account had also been linked to a high-profile money laundering case involving the prominent former owner of a private airline company. They falsely claimed that during the investigation, police had seized 247 ATM cards, including one bearing the complainant’s name.According to the FIR, the caller then connected the victim to an accomplice, who instructed him to open a portal and cooperate with the “investigation.” The fraudsters told him that a public sector bank account in his name had been compromised in the money-laundering racket. They ordered him to transfer his funds to specific bank accounts for verification. Fearing legal action, the senior citizen transferred a total of Rs1.29 crore to the accounts provided by the fraudsters over the two-week period.
