Mumbai: Police have registered a case against a man for attempting to defraud a couple by posing as a UK police officer.
According to the police, Praveen Patel, 62, a businessman, and his wife live in Dahisar (East). Their 28-year-old son is an engineer in London. On September 25, around 10am, Patel received a WhatsApp call from an unknown international number.
The caller claimed to be a London police officer and stated that they had arrested four individuals on rape charges, one of whom was his son. Patel, frightened, requested to speak with his son, but the accused refused and demanded Rs75,000 to settle the matter, providing details of a Punjab National Bank account. Patel transferred Rs 60,000 from his Union Bank account.
Later, Patel grew suspicious as to how the UK police spoke to him in Hindi. He called the number, and the accused told him that his son had informed them that his father did not speak English, so they used an interpreter. The accused then demanded an additional Rs2 lakh.
Meanwhile, Patel tried contacting his son, but there was no response. The fraudster then arranged for someone pretending to be the son to speak with Patel. This person spoke to him in Hindi and cried. When Patel began speaking in Gujarati, the call was abruptly disconnected.
Sometime later, Patel’s real son called him and explained that he could not pick up the earlier call as he was asleep. Realising they had been duped, Patel and his wife went to the Dahisar police station and filed a case. The police contacted Union Bank and froze the transferred amount.
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Patel stated, “The fraudster had a photo of an unknown police officer as their display picture. When I received the call, I saw the photo and believed it was genuine, so I sent Rs60,000. But when the fraudster pretended to be my son and spoke to me in Hindi, I asked him why he wasn’t speaking in Gujarati. As soon as I asked the question, the call was disconnected. Later, my real son called and assured me that he was fine and had not been arrested.”