BANGALORE: A Bangalore based NRI working in United Arab Emirates has lost Rs 28 lakh in UK online lottery fraud. He was lured as a winner of £10 lakh to swindle the amount.
Hary Sagainathan, who lives in Benson Town, even came down to Bangalore to receive the amount.
"I spent the whole family earning in the fraud," said Sagainathan, adding that the fraudsters not only lured him by telling him that he was the lucky winner of UK government lottery but also fooled him by sending him emails that he understood to be from the Reserve Bank of India.
While working in Dubai, Sagainathan received an email ID, which claimed to be of the UK government, informing him that he had been chosen as the lucky winner of an online lottery of £10 lakh.
The mail was signed by one Barry Gates who claimed to be the directorate of public relationships, European Union, in New Castle, UK.
Sagainathan was asked to contact him.
Sagainathan said he called up Gates who asked him for £280 as fee to courier the money.
Sagainathan deposited the money in a bank account told by Gates. Gates reportedly called up to confirm that the money had been received and asked him to another £16,409 as tax for transferring the money from a UK bank to India.
Sagainathan reportedly once again obliged. Gates reportedly said he was sending a representative, Steve Robinson, to Bangalore for cash delivery and asked Sagainathan to bear his travel expenses. Sagainathan paid $940 as the air fare for Robinson's visit.
The extortion reportedly continued when Gates asked him to pay £567 for another procedure stating it as custom clearance. Sagainathan paid the amount and flew down to Bangalore to receive Robinson on November 6.
The next day, Robinson reportedly called up Sagainathan and said he had been held at Bangalore International Airport by custom officials.
Robinson asked him to pay Rs 72,000 as customs duty to secure the release of prize money. Sagainathan deposited the money in an ICICI bank account as told by Robinson.
Robinson again called up asking Sagainathan to deposit Rs 4.3 lakh according to the RBI guidelines.
Few hours later Robinson asked Sagainathan to pay Rs 9.49 lakh towards RBI fee to secure his tax code.
Sagainathan then said he did not have more money following which Robinson asked him to pay the money in installments.
Sagainathan first paid Rs 3.49 lakh and then another Rs 3 lakh on November 12.
Sagainathan told the police that Robinson told convinced him that he had to cooperate for a series of procedures since it involved money transfer from one country to another.
He then received a call from an alleged RBI official asking him to pay a security deposit of Rs 19.8 lakh.
The person said it was needed to obtain anti drugs and anti terrorist certificates from the UNO and after obtaining the certificates, the money would be refunded to him.
Sagainathan said when he said he did not have money, they gave him a concession and asked him to pay Rs 5 lakh. After paying the amount on November 22, Sagainathan neither got a call nor met Robinson or Saleem Gangadhar, the person who claimed to be the RBI officer.
He tried to call their numbers and they were not reachable.
Then he decided to approach the JC Nagar police and seek help.