Cyber crime cops help retrieve Rs 9.33L lost to phishing gang

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu police’s cyber crime wing helped an elderly doctor retrieve Rs 9.33 lakh that was swindled away from his account by a phishing gang. The doctor had called the National Cyber Crime Reporting helpline- 1930 after money was debited from his account in instalments.

Police said that the doctor, Mahesh (name changed) lost his money on April 9 after he received a call from conmen posing as bank officials asking him to update some details in his account.

The caller told the doctor that he would assist him in updating and linking his PAN with his Aadhaar card and sent a link. The caller had spoken in decent English, which made the doctor less suspicious, police said.

After he clicked the malware infused link, they hacked the doctor’s account. He received a series of messages stating that money worth Rs.9.33 lakh was deducted from his bank account.

On advice from a friend, the elderly man immediately called the cyber crime reporting helpline 1930 after which a police team.

The money deducted from the doctor’s account was frozen from being deposited into another account and portions of the swindled money were retrieved and sent back to the original account. On Monday (September 12), the final amount of Rs 3.88 lakh was sent back to the account.