Telangana: Cyber criminals have free run in Covid-19 lockdown

HYDERABAD: India is under lockdown and the entire world is observing social distancing to arrest the spread of coronavirus. Save personnel from emergency services, none is permitted on the roads. With most people confined to their homes and probably hooked on to the Internet, cyber fraudsters are having a field day.
On March 24, a 28-year-old Army personnnel, I Arun Kumar from Golconda, lodged a complaint with cyber crime police alleging that he was duped of over Rs 70,000 by a fraudster on an online classifieds platform.
He claimed he saw an advertisement on e-classifides portal OLX about sale of a Mahindra Scorpio vehicle for Rs 1.9 lakh. Arun contacted the person who posted the advertisement and the latter introduced himself as Ajay Yadav, an IAF officer from Secunderabad. The army man made a deal with the fraudster to buy the Scorpio for Rs 1.7 lakh.
On March 23, the fraudster sent vehicle documents along with transport receipt and asked Arun to transfer Rs 3,150 as initial payment towards service charges into his Paytm account. After transferring the amount, Arun received a phone call from a man claiming to be the delivery executive of the SUV. The delivery executive made Arun transfer Rs 69,000 into bank account of the accused to deliver the vehicle. As the vehicle did not reach his door despite paying the promised amount in advance, Arun realised that he was duped and lodged a police complaint.
Similary, 32 year old private employee Ravi from Cherlapally lost Rs 1.1 lakh to cyber fraudsters on March 23. The culprits called Ravi, posing as Paytm Bank employee, and asked him to install ‘QuickSupport’ app and share the reference code. Subsequently, the fraudster made him do a Paytm transaction using SBI debit card and using those details obtained through remote access app, the accused siphoned off Rs 1.1 lakh from Ravi’s bank account.
A 24-year-old doctor from Tolichowki approached police, claiming unidentified fraudsters, whom she met on Instagram, had duped her of Rs 80,000 by making her invest in a ponzi scheme. Likewise, a housewife from Jubilee Hills, S Laxmi, lost Rs 1.24 lakh, while a sales executive from Patherghatti, Obaid, reported that he was duped of Rs 75,000 by fraudsters posing as Paytm and Kotak Mahindra executives.
Cyber crime cops of the three police commissionerates, on an average, recieve 90 to 100 complaints everyday. After the lockdown, they have been receiving about 30 complaints, including oral complaints pertaining to defamation in the name of coronavirus, from each commissionerate.
“We have received some complaints claiming wrong information was being circulated on platforms like Facebook or WhatsApp about the complainant and their family members testing positive for Covid-19. We are ensuring that such posts and messages are taken down,” Rachakonda assistant commissioner of police (ACP), cyber crime, S Harinath said.