Bengaluru man loses Rs 3 lakh to fraudster posing as US relative

The retired army officer in Bengaluru got a call from a number who said that Rs 24.4 lakh had been credited to his account. (Representational Photo).

A retired army officer in Bengaluru was cheated of Rs 3 lakh by a conman who posed as a relative of his from the United States, a Times of India report said.

64-year-old Captain Ranjit Singh told police in his complaint that he got a call on August 17 from a New York number. The person at the other end said he was his relative and introduced himself as Sukhwinder Singh.

The person called Singh few more times and said that he was coming to India and added that he would transfer money into his account. The person took Singh's bank account details and later sent him a message saying he had transferred Rs 24.4 lakh into his account.

The retired army officer then got a call from a local number and the person at the other end introduced himself as a State Bank of India executive and confirmed that the amount had been credited into his account and the new amount would reflect after 24 hours.

Later, he got another call from the same overseas number who asked him to transfer Rs 5 lakh since he was facing visa issues. He requested Singh to withdraw the amount from the Rs 24 lakh that was sent to him.

"I had only Rs 1 lakh balance in my account and transferred the money to the account number provided. I contacted a friend and got him to transfer Rs 2 lakh to the same account (provided by the caller). The miscreant contacted me again and asked me to arrange Rs 2 lakh more and gave a different mobile number to make a digital payment," Singh said.

The retired army officer further said he spoke to his friend Sukhwinder in Canada, who said that he had not spoken to him. He also said that he had spoken to his sister about Sukhwinder's trip to India and did not know how the fraudster found out about it.

"I contacted another friend for money. He said the UPI ID is in the name of Pooja, and he suspected it was a fraud. That's when I called my sister in Canada and also cross-checked with Sukhwinder who informed me that he hadn’t contacted me.

"My sister had called me two days before the miscreants contacted me. We had spoken about Sukhwinder coming to India. I still don’t understand how the miscreants learnt about this conversation and used his name to cheat me," he added.

Two days after Singh filed the complaint, he got another call from the fraudsters who used the name of a different relative living abroad and promised to offer him gifts. He declined the offer and disconnected the call.