Bengaluru: A seemingly helpful offer to enrol in a govt welfare scheme turned into a financial nightmare for a 55-year-old homemaker, whose bank account was allegedly used to route cybercrime transactions worth over Rs 10 lakh.According to a complaint filed by Parvathi, a resident of Ramamurthy Nagar, with the East Cyber Crime police Monday, she was duped by Sangamesh, a former colleague of her son, Ramesh.The ordeal began in April 2025, when Sangamesh approached Ramesh claiming he could help enrol Parvathi in the Gruha Lakshmi scheme, promising a monthly benefit of Rs 2,000. He said agents usually charged Rs 10,000 as a processing fee but offered to complete the process for Rs 7,000.At the time, Ramesh was largely occupied with caring for his ailing mother. Trusting Sangamesh, he explained the offer to Parvathi, who agreed. Ramesh then shared his mother’s PAN card details with Sangamesh over WhatsApp. Soon after, Sangamesh insisted that Parvathi open an account in a private bank’s Banaswadi branch, claiming it would expedite approval of the scheme. With limited knowledge of banking procedures, Parvathi visited the branch with her son and opened a savings account as suggested.Later that day, Sangamesh met Ramesh in Hoysalanagar and collected the bank kit, including the passbook, debit card, cheque book, along with Rs 5,000 as commission. Within days, he also obtained the OTP under the pretext of logging into the account to check the application status.Weeks passed without any update. When contacted, Sangamesh initially blamed delays on “govt server issues” before eventually becoming unreachable.The truth surfaced recently when police informed Parvathi that transactions worth Rs 10.6 lakh had been routed through her account, which was used as a mule account. She told investigators she had no knowledge of these transactions and had been misled by Sangamesh.Police have registered a case under the Information Technology Act and Section 318 (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
