In another instance of now-familiar cybercrime, a 62-year-old retired man from Secunderabad received a phone call from someone posing as a FedEx executive manager. The caller claimed that the victim had dispatched 20 kg of diabetic drugs along with 100 gram of MDMA to a Dr Arman Ali in Iran through FedEx. The victim refuted it stating that he had not dispatched any such package and did not know who Dr Arman Ali was.
The fraudster said that they had already informed the Narcotics Control Bureau about the transaction, and that an FIR had been issued. The fraudster connected the victim over a WhatsApp video call to supposed NCB authorities, dressed as police officers, who "interrogated" him extensively. During the call, a woman asked the victim to wait for a few minutes to speak with a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) from the cyber crime department.
Throughout the ordeal, the victim repeatedly asked for their credentials and details to verify their identity. The fraudsters eventually shared their identity cards but later deleted all correspondence. They "interrogated" the victim for over six hours and threatened to send a team to arrest the victim under the Narcotics Act. The fraudsters claimed to know all the details about the victim's financial accounts and forced him to disclose the balances in his FDs and other bank accounts in various banks. They then pressuring him until he transferred all his savings and Fixed Deposits (FDs) to them.
They coerced him into transferring a sum of Rs 24,58,000 to an "RBI account", falsely promising that the money would be returned after verification within 10 minutes. Under duress, the victim was forced to prematurely close all his FDs and transfer the funds to his ICICI account. He approached the Cyber Crime cell requesting action against the perpetrators.