In December last year the national Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), a unit within the Union Home Ministry, identified and blocked nearly 60,000 WhatsApp accounts used for fraud.
Send Rs 1.95 crore to this account’, the accounts officer of a Hyderabad firm was told via WhatsApp. It seemed from a perfectly legitimate source – the company’s Chairman and Managing Director – for a perfectly legitimate reason, as advance payment for a new project.
And so Rs 1.95 crore was duly transferred.
Only, it was not a perfectly legitimate message.
The message seemed to come from the MD’s WhatsApp account. His photo was in the display section, but it was actually a fraudster who conned the officer into transferring nearly Rs 2 crore.
Fortunately for the MD and his company (and the accounts officer), the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau stopped this ‘high-value cyber fraud’ and recovered the entire amount.
Received earlier today, the transfer was completed at 1.02 pm.
Shortly after that the real Managing Director received a bank notification and, understandably worried, immediately contacted his accounts officer.
On being told about the ‘WhatsApp message’, the MD confirmed he made no such request, and the company promptly filed a complaint on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal, or NCRP.
The NCRP then swung into action, first to confirm the transaction had occurred and then to track down the money. It was difficult, initially, because certain details were missing.
However, working with the company and the MD, and the bank’s nodal officers, the money was eventually located and, miraculously, the entire Rs 1.95 crore was recovered.
Fortunately the criminals had not yet withdrawn any of the cash.
This is far from the first such instance of cybercrime. A large number of men and women, including private individuals and companies, have been duped out of hard-earned money by fake messages and calls, prompting repeated warnings from the government to be careful.