Retired Army officer duped of Rs 40,000 in WhatsApp fraud

Agencies
December 24, 2019

Thane, Dec 24: A 53-year-old retired Army officer from Thane city in Maharashtra has been allegedly duped of Rs 40,000 in a fraud on WhatsApp, police said on Tuesday.

The victim in his police complaint said he got a missed call on his WhatsApp number on December 6.

When he dialled that number, the call did not get through, so he sent a message on it, an official at Kasarwadavli police station here said.

The person on the other side then replied to the message, saying he was the victim's friend and identified himself as Col. Harpal Singh.

The person stated in his message that he and his wife were in the US and his sister-in-law had a heart ailment and needed some money, the official said.

He further stated that since he was in the US, he could not transfer money to his sister. He also gave an account number to the victim to transfer money.

The victim, believing the message was from his friend, promptly transferred Rs 40,000 to the specified account.

However, when the victim got more messages from the same number asking for an additional Rs 20,000, he got suspicious and called his friend on his mobile number.

When the victim enquired about the money, his friend said he never asked for it and that he was not in the US, but at Faridkot in Punjab, the official said.

The victim then realised he was cheated.

He lodged a police complaint on Monday, the official said, adding that a case has been registered under Indian Penal Code Section 420 (cheating) and provisions of the Information Technology Act.

A probe was underway, he said, adding that no person was arrested so far.

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News Network
March 7,2020

Palghar, Mar 7: Police have arrested a man for allegedly cheating several shopkeepers in Maharashtra's Thane, Pune and Nashik by making phone calls in a woman's voice, police said on Friday.

The accused, Shashikant Ambekar (42), a resident of Palghar, was arrested in the last week of February, they said.

"He used to note down the phone numbers mentioned on different shops and call the owners in a woman's voice to order some things from them. He would tell them that he had a Rs 2000 currency note and needed change," an official said.

"He would ask the shopkeepers to send smaller denomination notes for exchange. He would wait at the entrance of buildings and when the delivery man arrived, he used to tell that he was there on behalf of the ''caller woman''.

"He would then take the currency notes from the delivery man saying he would get the Rs 2,000 note from the woman. However, he would disappear from the scene," the official said.

Police have seized Rs 1,85,000 from the accused and found that so far he has committed 22 similar crimes in different parts of the state.

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News Network
June 7,2020

Bengaluru, Jun 7: A 27-year-old man was allegedly killed using deadly weapons by unidentified people here, police said.

The incident took place at deceased, Arvind's rented house in LBS Nagar inside HAL police station limits.

According to police, Arvind is an accused in a criminal case and recently walked out of jail on bail. 

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News Network
January 20,2020

Ahmedabad, Jan 20: Cops in Gandhinagar fell in a catch-22 situation when a state government employee approached them with a complaint that the 26-year-old woman class teacher of his 14-year-old son had gone missing taking his son in tow. The man, who works at Udyog Bhavan in Gandhinagar said the woman had seduced his teenage son, who studies in class VIII and taken him away with her. The boy had gone missing from 4pm on Friday, and the classteacher was also missing.

A police official said the woman teacher had been too intimate with the allegedly missing boy for around a year, and the school authorities had recently rebuked them. “As their relationship was unaccepted, they left their homes on Friday,” he said. It was rare to find a case of a woman teacher eloping with her teenage student, the official added.

An FIR for elopement under Section 363 IPC has been registered with Kalol city police in Gandhinagar district. The complaint stated the teacher is a resident of Darbari chawl in Kalol town.

“When I reached home at around 7pm, I found my son missing. My wife told me he had left home at around 4pm. We searched for him in the neighbourhood and among relatives, but couldn’t trace him,” claims the teenage boy’s father in the FIR. “I went to the teacher’s house but they were not there,” the man stated.

Inspector K K Desai of Kalol city police said the missing duo could not be traced as they were not carrying cellphones.

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