Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Six months ago, the cyber crooks had made a new plan to dupe people of Bhopal by stating that their kid(s) were in trouble and needed money to be set free. The crooks used to pose as police officials and told parents that their son had been implicated in a rape case. In case of girls, they would say that their daughter had been caught in a compromising position.
According to city cyber cell officials, the cyber crooks gain accurate information about their target person by sifting through social media handles. From April to October 18 this year, a total of 37 such complaints were lodged at the city cyber cell, wherein people complained that they were duped of their money on the pretext of saving their children who had landed in trouble.
The menace has left Bhopalites poorer by almost 10 lakh. The cyber cell police personnel have been unable to make any arrest in the cases till now. According to cyber cell officials, crooks obtain information about children of target person from former’s social media accounts. This makes it easy for fraudsters to dupe people.
The cyber cell officials said all the children, whose parents had been duped, had publicised their personal information on social media platforms, which includes the school/college they have been studying at, the places of recreation they visit on a regular basis, the time of entering/exiting their educational institution among other details.
Parents fall in crooks’ dragnet due to voice cloning
Bharatlaal Prajapati, a cyber cop posted at city cyber cell, told Free Press that in all the 37 cases, the cyber crooks had cloned the voice of the child, whose parents they had called up to extort money. Believing that their child was really in trouble, the parents fell into the crooks’ dragnet and ended up losing money.
Switch to private accounts
When contacted, assistant police commissioner Sujeet Tiwari said every individual should switch to a private account on social media platforms and must refrain from adding unknown people there.