Mangaluru: A 78-year-old retired health official, who used to work as a regional advisor for the World Health Organisation, fell victim to a fraudulent email scam, resulting in a loss of Rs 3.56 lakh.
He received an email from an address, [email protected], which closely resembled his friend’s email, [email protected]. The email falsely claimed that his friend’s son and daughter-in-law had a child in London. Believing it to be true, the retired official sent his congratulations.
Subsequently, he received another email from the same deceptive email ID, informing him that his friend had missed his return flight from London to India due to his wife’s illness. The scammer requested money for the return flight, and the retired official, unaware of the deceit, transferred a total of Rs 3.56 lakh from his Kotak Mahindra account to the provided account between July 26 and July 31.
Realizing the scam, he filed a complaint with the Cyber Economic and Narcotic Crime Station, resulting in the case being registered under Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the Information Technology Act, along with Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code.
