Cyber fraudsters in Bareilly district duped a man of more than ₹5.41 lakh by sending a malicious wedding invitation card in PDF format on WhatsApp, exposing yet another sophisticated online scam targeting mobile users.
The victim, Nitin Gupta, a resident of Dunka area in Shahi, lodged a complaint at the Cyber Crime Police Station on May 18 after discovering that money had been siphoned off from his bank account days after he opened the suspicious file.
According to the complaint submitted to inspector KB Singh, Gupta said that he received a WhatsApp message on April 22 from an unknown person identifying himself as Sajid. The sender had shared what appeared to be a wedding invitation card in PDF format. Believing it to be genuine, Nitin downloaded and opened the file on his mobile phone.
Shortly after opening the PDF, WhatsApp allegedly got deleted automatically from his phone. When he later reinstalled and reopened the application, he found that two months of WhatsApp data had disappeared. Unaware of the possibility of cyber fraud and lacking technical knowledge, he initially ignored the issue.
However, on May 15, Nitin checked his bank account and was shocked to discover that ₹5,41,085 had been withdrawn fraudulently from his account. Realising he had fallen victim to a cyber scam, he immediately approached the Cyber Crime Police Station and filed a complaint.
Police have registered a case and begun an investigation into the matter. Inspector KB Singh suspects that the PDF file may have contained malware or a phishing link that enabled cyber criminals to gain access to sensitive information and banking credentials stored on the victim’s device. “The entire matter is being investigated in detail,” he said.
