Think twice before developing a friendship with a stranger, or else you might end up losing your hard-earned money. An ex-IAF officer learned this the hard way after a youth duped him to the tune of Rs 35 lakh on the pretext of helping him to recover the money he lost in some online gaming. Such an incident has been reported from Bhubaneswar.
The victim, group Captain Kishore Chandra Gantayat had developed a friendship with one Santosh Sahu of Kendrapara district. It is alleged that Santosh fraudulently withdrew money from Kishore’s account. Carrying out the probe, Cyber Police officials arrested Santosh and recovered Rs 6 lakh cash, cheques, and bank passbook.
A diploma holder in data science, Santosh had met the victim at a Bhubaneswar hospital. Bhubaneswar Zone 5 ACP, Gautam Kisan informed that the accused had gained access to the victim’s bank account and transferred the money to his own account after transferring the cash initially into two other accounts- one in Bengaluru and another one in Assam.
“The accused had come in contact with the victim in July. The complainant had informed us that he had lost some money in online gaming. The accused subsequently offered help to recover the money. During this phase, the accused had collected information including bank details and other details from the victim’s mobile phone,” said the senior police official.