Udupi: A Non-Resident Indian (NRI) was cheated of Rs. 1.13 crore from his bank account by unidentified persons who managed to hack his email account.

According to the police, Louis D’Souza, who lives in Canada, maintained a Foreign Currency Non Resident (FCNR) account at the main branch of Syndicate Bank in Manipal. An amount of U.S. $ 2,23,830 had been credited to his account from the Katapady branch of Canara Bank and ICICI Bank earlier.

Later, as per an email message from D’Souza’s email address, an amount of U.S. $ 1,15,000 was transferred to an account in the National Bank of Dubai on January 15, 2014, while U.S. $ 70,000 was transferred to a bank account in Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank on October 27, 2014, the police said.

On November 13, 2014, the Syndicate Bank got an email asking it to transfer this amount to the Bank of China (Hong Kong). Growing suspicious about the mail, Ramesh Nayak, Assistant General Manager of Syndicate Bank contacted D’Souza on the authenticity of the mail, where he was told that the mail was not sent by D’Souza and suspected that the email was hacked by fraudsters.

The police said the email address of D’Souza had been hacked, his signature copied and false emails sent to the Syndicate Bank.

Meanwhile, a total of Rs. 1.13 crore had been transferred to other bank accounts in the process.