Rajkot: A 38-year-old woman’s savings were saved from cyberfraud after alert bank staff and Keshod Cyber Crime police in Junagadh district intervened.On Feb 25, Hetal Kathiriya visited the local Punjab National Bank (PNB) branch to transfer Rs 90,000. The account number was filled in on the slip, but the recipient’s name was missing. When she asked bank workers to verify the name linked to the account number, the employee found it belonged to ‘Tanya Singh’, registered at a Delhi branch, and immediately suspected fraud. The bank alerted local police. When police arrived, Kathiriya insisted the transfer was legitimate, claiming she was sending the money to her husband and police had no jurisdiction over her funds. However, officers instructed the bank to block the transaction, believing she was being defrauded or unknowingly aiding a criminal network. During questioning, Kathiriya called someone and handed the phone to a police officer. “I put the phone on speaker and talked to him in front of the bank manager. That person was talking in Hindi while this woman was a Gujarati speaker from a nearby village. When we asked several questions to the person on the phone about his relationship with this woman and how he knew her, he disconnected the phone,” said Gopal Vithlani, a cybercrime expert with Junagadh police. Kathiriya then attempted to call two or three other numbers, all of which were switched off. Police inspector P A Jadav and his team eventually convinced her she was being targeted by scammers. She later told police she had been promised a ‘gift’ by an ‘Instagram friend’ and was instructed to pay Rs 90,000 for “taxes and other charges” to release it. “We cross-verified the receiving bank account and found that several applications alleging fraud had mentioned it,” Vithlani added. Relieved that her savings were protected, the woman, who is from a poor family, submitted a handwritten application to have her blocked funds released.
