Pension fraud: Rs 8.5 lakh GONE in minutes, Retired UP cop LOSES PF MONEY to cyber thug

This person posing as government's treasury officer told UP cop that he was preparing the file of the latter's pension and that in order to proceed further he would send an OTP on the phone number which the retired personnel must share.

Noida: A retired police sub-inspector has been conned of over Rs 8.50 lakh by a cyber thug who posed as the government's treasury officer to help him with his pension, an official said on Monday.

An FIR has been lodged at the Cyber Crime police station in Noida's Sector 36 and police have launched an investigation into the case, the official said.

On November 21, I got a call from an unknown number. The person on the other side identified himself as a treasury officer from Saharanpur. He said you have applied for transferring your pension to Saharanpur and shared a lot of details about my professional documents, convincing me that he indeed is a government officer, According to complainant Bijendra Singh Malik, who retired from the police service on July 31.

Malik currently resides in the police lines of Gautam Buddh Nagar but is a native of the Saharanpur district.

This person then told me that he was preparing the file of my pension and that in order to proceed further he would send me an OTP on my phone number which I must share with him. I obliged with the OTP and some other details as sought by him over the phone. A little later, I got notifications that a sum of Rs 8.62 lakh has been withdrawn from my account in two instalments, the retired police official said.

Inspector Reeta Yadav, in charge of the Cyber Crime police station here, said the FIR has been lodged under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 419 (cheating by impersonation) and under provisions of the Information Technology Act.

The matter is being investigated and we are working on some leads that we have got about the suspects, Yadav told PTI.

The inspector, meanwhile, cautioned the general public to be careful while sharing their personal or bank-related information over the phone or social media, especially with strangers.

There has been a rise in cases where retired officials are getting duped on various pretexts related to facilitation of their pension, or investment. Thugs have access to a lot of information which is present in the public domain and hence there is a need for people to be alert when sharing personal information over the phone or on the internet, she said.

The police have also urged people to use the dedicated helpline 1930 or 112 to report any cyber offence.