KOCHI: A city resident and his father were duped of Rs 13 lakh by an online racket with promises of business deals through Facebook Marketplace and other leading e-commerce platforms.
The incident came to light when Jaison, 40, of Kakkanad, approached law enforcers. Police said Jaison and his father paid the accused over Rs 13 lakh based on interactions on Telegram. “He doesn’t even know the real identity of the accused. The fund transfers were made from the bank accounts of Jaison and his father. We are trying to trace the IP address of the specific FB account which was used by the fraudster,” said an officer with the city cyber police station.
As per the FIR registered in connection with the incident, the accused got in touch with Jaison through Facebook after presenting him with a proposal for doing business on an online shopping platform. The accused started communicating with Jaison through Telegram and forwarded a link ‘https://www.mallcar.pro/ /pages/auth/login’ asking him to complete certain tasks for formally processing the deal.
The accused also convinced both Jaison and his father to pay for processing the application. “Between September 13 and October 10, they transferred `1,322,957 to the account of the accused from their personal accounts,” police said, “We are verifying the account details to track the accused,” the officer added. Jaison told TNIE that the fraudsters were very convincing as they mailed him important papers, including company registration documents and other government approvals. “They produced the digital approvals from e-commerce platforms” he added.