The fraudster used the photo of a judge from the Bombay High Court as a WhatsApp display picture (DP) to ask for the money
Representational Image. File Pic
A district judge from Maharashtra's Solapur was allegedly duped of Rs 50,000 by an unidentified person who used the photo of a judge from the Bombay High Court as a WhatsApp display picture (DP) to ask for the money, reported PTI citing the police on Saturday.
Based on a complaint lodged by the high court's registrar a first information report (FIR) has been registered by the Mumbai Police under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and IT Act, said the PTI report.
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As per the complaint, the district judge received a WhatsApp message on Friday from a phone number which had the photograph of a high court judge as the display picture, he said.
The district judge was acquainted with the HC judge, said the PTI report. The sender of the message asked for Rs 50,000, which he claimed he would return at the end of the day, the official said.
Without any further verification, the district judge transferred the sum but got suspicious when he got another message with more demands, he said.
The district judge then contacted the registrar's office at the high court and learnt that the judge whose photo was used had never asked for money, the official said.
In another incident earlier this week, Mumbai Police froze nearly Rs 40 lakh allegedly extorted by a cyber fraudster from a man after he lodged a complaint with the cyber helpline 1930, an official said, reported the PTI.
The complainant, an employee of a private firm had got a call on Wednesday from a man claiming to be a law enforcement officer.
"The caller claimed that the complainant had got a consignment and illegally received a large amount of money in his bank account," an official said, as per the PTI.
The caller threatened to get the man arrested and forced him to transfer Rs 39.88 lakh to a bank account. Later, the man then called the cyber crime helpline 1930 and narrated the incident.
Mumbai Police alerted the National Cyber Crime Reporting (NCRP) portal and contacted the nodal officer of the fraudster's bank.
The bank immediately froze the money transferred from the complainant's account.
"We have saved the money taken from the complainant's account," the official said, the news agency reported on Thursday.
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