2 weeks Ago By Gitesh Shelke
1 2 Pune: Unknown cybercrooks misled the accountant of a data analysis company in Market Yard into transferring Rs2.34 crore to them, after posing as the agency's founder, who is based out of Canada. The Cyber police on Saturday registered a cheating case after the company's accountant (45) lodged a complaint, stating that the crime took place between Feb 19 and 24 this year.
The modus operandi seen in this crime is typically termed as ‘ CEO fraud ' or ‘ whale phishing '. This is the second such case reported by the city police over the last three weeks. On March 6, an elderly director of an engineering and design firm was duped of Rs1.
9 crore. The police recovered Rs41 lakh of this amount after getting some 50 bank accounts frozen. In the latest case, as per the FIR, fraudsters sent a message to an accounts department staffer of the targeted company on Feb 19, after deliberately making a missed call to his mobile phone.
The staffer was in a hospital looking after his ailing mother. The message he received said, "I am the founder of the company and this is my new number. I want to know how much balance we have in the company's accounts.
" The staffer sent this message to the accountant and asked her to get in touch with the founder on his new number. The complainant sent the details of the company's accounts to the said number. The fraudsters, posing as the CEO, asked the accountant to transfer money to different bank accounts ‘to make payments to an Australian firm'.
They shared the details and the accountant, with another colleague, transferred money to 11 bank accounts. After each transaction, the accountant also shared screenshots of the transaction with the ‘founder'. The police said these transactions were done without cross-verification as the founder is based in Canada.
The fraudsters claimed they Rs3 crore were needed to transfer to an Australian firm and kept on demanding more money. Another director of the company then realised money was being transferred and reached out to the company office to enquire. The complainant's colleague informed the other director that they noticed a different name in each beneficiary account, instead of the founder's name.
The other director immediately went to the bank and requested them to stop the payments. By this time, Rs 2.34 crore had been sent to the fraudsters.
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