Bengaluru
About two months ago, Manjunath (name changed), a cab driver from Hyderabad, had the shock of his life when he received summons from the Bengaluru South East Division Cyber Crime Police asking him to appear for questioning in a cyber crime case. “Your response is required regarding a money transaction to your account. Appear before the investigator at the Bengaluru Southeast CEN Police Station,” the summons read.
Manjunath rushed to Bengaluru as he had received the letter late and had already missed the deadline. The police, meanwhile, were preparing to send a team to Hyderabad, but eventually detained Manjunath in Shanthinagar after tracking his location.
“His account had received money transferred by a resident of South Bengaluru, who had been duped by a cyberfraudster in a courier fraud,” the investigator handling the case told The Hindu.
A courier fraud or a FedEx fraud is one where cyberfraudsters claiming to call from Customs or one of the law enforcement agencies claiming they had intercepted a courier in their name with contraband, subject them to ‘interrogation’ on video, seek their bank details and siphon off money, or sometimes subject gullible citizens to even “digital arrest”.
