CHENNAI: State Transport Commissioner, A Shanmuga Sundaram has approached the city police to seek action against miscreants who have misused his photograph on WhatsApp and Snapchat from a different phone number and demanded money from transport department staff and officials.

The issue was brought to the attention of the Transport commissioner's office after several department staff received messages in Whatsapp from an unknown number with the IAS officer's photograph as the display picture.

In the message, the scamsters evoke urgency and ask them to transfer money to an account, police said.

The complaint has been forwarded to the Central Crime Branch's cyber crime wing for further investigations.

Several senior bureaucrats and police officers have been victims of such impostors in the past too with impostors creating fake profiles in facebook and other social media platforms in the name of the officers and sending messages seeking money.