BENGALURU: A 62-year-old woman from Palmgrove Road in Victoria Layout has fallen prey to an online courier scam, where the cybercriminals managed to extort Rs 13 lakh from the victim. The scammers scared her that there was a courier parcel to Thailand in her name, which had drugs in it.
The victim knew that she had not sent any parcel, and yet, fell prey after the accused told her Aadhaar Card number and threatened to initiate action if she did not act fast. The victim Priya, (name changed) fell prey to this trick, and transferred the money before realising that she had been scammed. She then went to the police station and filed a complaint.
The victim had received a call on Wednesday afternoon from one of the accused, claiming to be a courier company executive from Mumbai. He told her that a package sent by her to Thailand was found to have contained 140 grams of MDMA, eight passports, and five credit cards among other illegal objects. When the victim said that the package did not belong to her, the accused read out her Aadhaar number.
The accused further told her that the customs officials had confiscated the package, and she had to approach the Mumbai Cyber Crime police to raise a complaint. They even made her download Skype and sent her a link asking her to furnish all her personal details. The accused then gave her an account number asking her to transfer the money.
The next day, the victim went to the bank and transferred the money to the account number provided to her. After the money was received, the accused deleted all their details.