Ahmedabad: Man gets fraudsters to return Rs 10,000

AHMEDABAD: In an interesting case of ‘revenge con’, cybercrooks who cheated an activist out of Rs 10,000 were left begging for his mercy after the latter approached cops and got their bank account frozen. They also returned the money they had tricked him into paying after promising him a loan of Rs 1 lakh. Kaleem Siddiqui, a resident of Bapunagar, who led an agitation against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and NRC (National Register of Citizens) was approached by a person posing as the representative of a financial firm on December 24, 2020 with a loan offer.
After many rounds of negotiations with various representatives, Sidiqqui signed up for a loan of Rs 1 lakh against an insurance policy for which he was required to pay Rs 10,000 as EMI. On January 2, he received an email from the firm, informing him that the loan had been sanctioned. Siddiqui even paid Rs 10,000 as the first monthly instalment to the firm through real-time gross settlement (RTGS) transfer system.
The next day, another representative called him up, saying the loan amount had been increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.17 lakh for which he would have to pay an additional Rs 8,300. The person offered no clarification to Siddiqui and told him that only bankers would understand the nitty-gritty of such a loan system. Realizing he was being conned, he reported the fraud to the city police on January 5. Acting on Siddiqui’s application, they froze the firm’s account that was being operated from the Pune branch of a private bank.
When the finance firm representatives learnt about an inquiry against them, they approached Siddiqui on January 7.
“They asked me if I had filed a complaint. I told them that my relative working with the bank had frozen their account. They began pleading with me, asking for the complaint to be withdrawn. They promised to return Rs 5,000 to me if I did not initiate legal action,” said Siddiqui.
After the crooks returned him Rs 5,000, Siddiqui assured them he would ask his relative to unfreeze their account if they returned the remaining Rs 5,000. They did as asked to and deposited Rs 5,000 into Siddiqui’s account on January 9. “They returned my entire money and approached again, asking me to unfreeze their account. But this time, I told them that I had filed a complaint with the cybercrime cops against them,” said Siddiqui.
“They accused me of betraying their trust and I told them that they were the ones betraying others. Realizing I was not going to relent, they began pleading for mercy,” he added. Police officials said that such cybercrooks can only be nailed if the fraud victims approach the cops without delay.