Navi Mumbai: A 47-year-old hotelier in Vashi prevented a loss of Rs 10.04 lakh after he immediately registered an online complaint on the National Cyber Crime Portal (NCCRP) when a cyber fraudster posing as an MGL officer fraudulently debited the amount from his wife’s bank account.The incident occurred on June 30. After the hotelier lodged a complaint on NCCRP, an FIR of cheating and criminal breach of trust under BNS sections along with the IT Act was registered on Friday at APMC police station against the scamster, who identified himself as Sanjay Joshi in a text message sent to the hotelier.Abasaheb Patil, senior inspector of APMC, informed that on June 30 at 3.23 pm, complainant hotelier Vikas Dongre received a text message from an unknown number. The message read “MAHANAGAR gas distribution private limited, DEAR MGL, Dear pipeline MGL Gas user Your connection will be disconnected tonight 09:00 PM. Because your previous month’s bill is not updated. Please immediately call our bill update officer, Mr Sanjay Joshi, on Mobile 9523918405.“At 3.50 pm, Dongre contacted Sanjay Joshi, who told him his MGL supply will be disconnected today due to non-payment of the Mahanagar gas connection bill. Joshi then sent an APK file link, ‘MGL BILL UPDATE (13). apk’, on WhatsApp to enable online bill payment.As Dongre was using an iPhone, the APK file did not open when clicked. He called Joshi at 4.30 pm and told him the link was not opening on an iPhone; Joshi told him to forward the APK file link to an Android phone where it would open.Dongre forwarded the link to his wife’s Android phone WhatsApp and opened it there. The file mentioned that an MGL bill payment of Rs 12 only was due. When Dongre told Joshi he would pay Rs 12 by UPI, Joshi insisted he pay using his debit card. After Dongre entered his debit card details, Joshi told him to share his ATM PIN; when Dongre suspected foul play and, disconnecting the call, exited the process of paying the MGL bill on his wife’s mobile and kept her mobile aside.
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After 15 minutes, Dongre realised he had not deleted the APK file on his wife’s WhatsApp. When he checked her phone, he found it was hacked. After about two hours, when her mobile restarted, there were bank alert messages of eight transactions totalling Rs 10.04 lakh debited from her bank account, as Joshi had hacked her mobile and gained remote access to her mobile data to carry out fraudulent transactions by transferring the money to different bank accounts. Dongre repeatedly called Joshi’s mobile number, but it was continuously switched off.Dongre then immediately lodged a complaint on NCCRP, after which portal officials were able to block all the transactions, saving him from suffering the monetary loss.
