Pune: A 50-year-old computer hardware shopowner from Bibvewadi was cheated of Rs 1.72 crore between Aug and Sept last year by online fraudsters posing as bank officials after they tricked him into sharing his banking credentials through an online form.The shopowner submitted a complaint application to the Pune city cyberpolice in Jan. After verifying its details, a formal FIR was registered on Tuesday.Senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of the Pune cyberpolice said, “The victim wanted to obtain a credit card and had applied for one with a private bank. Before the request was processed, the suspects called him posing as bank officials. They told him to fill out an online form and download an application.”She said, “The victim downloaded the form, filled in the required details and clicked on the submit button. In reality, it was a link to a remote access application that got installed on his cellphone, giving the suspects access to all his banking credentials. The suspects used these credentials and siphoned off Rs1.72 crore from his bank account.”Shinde said, “The victim received messages of the banking transactions on his cellphone, but the account was emptied before he could take action.”Ex-officer of bank loses Rs75 lakh to cybercrooksA retired bank officer (62) from the NIBM Road area lodged a complaint with the Pune cyberpolice stating that online fraudsters cheated him of Rs75 lakh between Dec last year and Feb this year after promising handsome returns on investments in online share trade.The Pune cyberpolice registered a cheating case on Tuesday evening. According to the police, the victim’s phone number was added to a group on a messaging application, where members discussed high profits from trading. The victim read the messages and contacted the group’s administrator.The administrator promised to help him invest and told him to download an online share-trading application. Later, the suspects shared details of five different bank accounts and told him to transfer money there for investments.The victim transferred Rs75 lakh to the accounts till he realised that he had been cheated.
