A 33-year-old woman from Mumbai was duped of over Rs 4 lakh by a user she befriended on Instagram. The user posed as a foreign national and had promised to get the woman an iPhone and 20,000 Pounds. However, she ended up losing her own money to the cybercrime. The Mumbai Police termed the case as “gift fraud” and said the woman lost Rs 4.15 lakh as processing fees and other miscellaneous charges to get the gift.
An FIR was filed at the Powai police station on December 5. In the complaint, the woman said she had accepted a friend request from one ‘David Lucas’ having an Instagram handle “captain.david_38” on November 23. The woman works for a data and research service company, an Indian Express report said.
She became “friends” after which they moved to WhatsApp from Instagram. “As the man was using an international number, the woman believed that he was calling from a foreign country. After a week, the complainant received a WhatsApp call around 10 am where the friend told her that he had sent her an iPhone and 20,000 pounds in cash as a gift,” an Indian Express report quoted the police as saying.
The scam did not end there. The woman received a call from the “courier service” and she will have to pay Rs 20,000 as courier charges. The woman told the police that she thought it to be genuine and made the payment. However, she kept getting calls for more money.
“The fraudster asked for another Rs 68,000 because the parcel contained 20,000 pounds. She paid Rs 50,000 but the fraudsters kept making her pay more money saying she needed to pay tax, and that they would convert the money from pounds to rupees.”
After this, the woman was told that Rs 20 lakh was sent to her account and she needs to pay a processing fee of Rs 1 lakh, police said.
Finally sensing suspicion, the woman called up her Instagram friend and told him she doesn’t require the gifts anymore, and asked for her money back. Later, ‘David’ blocked all communication with her, which is when she realised that she was being duped.
According to Mumbai Police data on cyber crimes, 67 such gift/customs frauds have occurred this year in which two were detected and three persons were arrested.
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