Social media new route for fraudsters

Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, December 12

Rohit Kumar (name changed) of Rohtak recently lodged a complaint with the police claiming that he had been defrauded by a foreign woman national.

“The woman befriended me and promised to visit India to meet me. One day, she requested for a monetary help of Rs 65,000, saying her son needed immediate hospitalisation. I deposited the amount in the bank account specified by her.

When I called her up later, a man answered the phone call and told me to deposit Rs 10 lakh more in some bank accounts,” he said.

In another case, Satbir (name changed), a resident of a village in Rohtak district, got a friend request on Facebook from a young woman. He accepted the friend request and they began to chat. After a few weeks, the woman told him that her mother was not well and sought Rs 55,000 from him.

The village youth deposited the amount in a bank account as told by her. Following that, the woman snapped link with him. DSP (Headquarters) Gorakh Pal Rana said, “Several such cases are being reported. Online fraudsters posing as girls/women honey trap unsuspecting local youths through Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms. After that, they request them to deposit money in certain bank accounts on some emotional pretext or blackmail them by recording their video-calls and chats etc.”

Rana said they had constituted a special team comprising investigators of the cyber cell and ATM fraud cell to crack such cases. He appealed to the youth not to accept friend requests from unknown persons on social media platforms.