CHENNAI: The city police’s South Zone Cyber Crime Wing has arrested two accused from Maharashtra in connection with cheating a Chennai resident of Rs 19.9 lakh by posing as courier firm staff and cybercrime officers and manipulating the victim into transferring the money by threatening a fake police investigation.
In the FedEx scam, victims receive threatening calls claiming illegal parcels or money laundering charges and are intimidated into transferring money or sharing sensitive information. Scammers often use Skype or WhatsApp video calls, posing as police officers in uniform, to trick victims into believing their claims.
On August 12, last year, the victim, Santosh (33) of Ashok Nagar, received a phone call from a person claiming to be an executive of a courier firm who said that a parcel Santosh sent contained drugs and expired passports and transferred the call to another person, who claimed to be an officer with Mumbai police.
Only after transferring Rs 19.9 lakh to multiple accounts as demanded by the scamsters, the victim realised he was scammed and then registered an online complaint with the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal and the Cyber Crime Wing in Chennai.
Based on investigations, two persons from Maharashtra, Naresh Kalyan Rao Shinde (20) and Srikanth Sureshrao Gatkar (34), were arrested. The probe revealed that the duo were also involved in a cybercrime case registered by Tambaram City Police. Both the accused were brought to Chennai and remanded in judicial custody.