Retired defence staffer duped of pension savings in Bengaluru

Posing as bank officials, cyber fraudsters have cheated a 74-year-old retired Air Force staffer of his pension savings of ₹6.2 lakh.

Based on a complaint by the victim, the East Division police have registered a case against the accused charging them under the IT Act and Section 318 (cheating) under the BNS Act recently.

The victim, a resident of Kammanahalli, in his complaint, said that on January 6 he received a call and a WhatsApp message from a person claiming to be the manager of the bank, where his pension was being deposited.

The accused convinced the victim that he needed to install a customer support app in order to complete an “annual identification” required to be done annually for people under the pension scheme. The accused shared an APK file on WhatsApp and asked him to install it. Then they realised that his wife was a joint account holder and added her on a conference call and shared the same APK file asking her to follow the instructions.

After following the instructions, the accused enabled auto-forwarding of all calls and SMSes to their number and all OTPs went to their number. Using this, they started withdrawing money from his pension account and also from his wife’s personal account, the victim said in the complaint.

The total amount withdrawn was around ₹6,22,759. Realising his mistake, he disconnected the call and switched off his wife’s phone. The whole incident happened between 11.35 a.m. and 1 p.m. He later approached the police with a list of phone numbers he had received from the scammers seeking legal action.

The city police have launched an awareness campaign requesting people not to entertain any unknown calls from persons claiming to be police and bank officials seeking personal information.

The police have also asked people not to click on any APK files they receive which would enable the scammer to access their personal information.

Published - January 11, 2025 07:39 pm IST