A 32-year-old female IT engineer residing in Noida fell victim to cyber criminals who reportedly swindled Rs 3.75 lakh from her during a seven-hour Skype call, where they held her "hostage" and gradually siphoned money from her account.
According to reports, the fraudsters posed as police officers and accused the woman of involvement in drug trafficking, claiming to have intercepted a parcel purportedly sent from Mumbai to Taiwan containing illicit substances.
The victim's husband, Chirag Varshney, disclosed that the incident occurred on February 28. His wife received a Skype call around 10:30 am, during which the criminals coerced her into staying put while they manipulated her into transferring funds under the guise of clearing her of the alleged drug charges.
Varshney explained that despite his presence in the office and his father being at home, his wife was too intimidated to seek help, allowing the fraud to unfold uninterrupted in an adjacent room. The perpetrators allegedly instilled fear in her by threatening harm to family members if she didn't comply.
"After receiving a call from a courier company, my wife was deceived through a Skype call," Varshney stated, adding that the call transitioned to someone claiming to be a police officer who demanded her bank account and family information. The intimidation tactics compelled her to surrender the money.
Initially reporting the incident on a cybercrime portal yielded no results, prompting Varshney to escalate the matter to the police. An FIR has been lodged at the Sector 39 police station, citing sections 420 (cheating) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code, along with section 66D of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act. Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, Manish Kumar Mishra, confirmed that necessary legal measures are being pursued in response to the complaint lodged by a resident of Amrapali Sapphire in Sector 45, Noida.