Cyber crime is a growing issue in today’s day and age. It is not only costing mental trauma but also financial distress.
On Sunday, a 17 year old boy from Vishakapatnam was duped of Rs. 14 lakhs by a girl he had befriended on the social media site Facebook.
Reports reveal the boy befriended the girl a few months ago and have been chatting with each other through the site.
The boy was fooled into believing that the girl was in dire need of money. He took around an hour to do 34 transactions on Sunday sending the girl a total of Rs. 14 lakhs.
Local media reported the boy got the money from his father’s savings account. His dad had just retired from the Indian Railways. The retired man was planning to build a home with his retirement benefits.
The father was put in shock when the bank officials informed him his balance was just Rs. 119.
On Monday, the boy went to the Vishakapatnam Cybercrime Police and informed what had happened.
Once the complaint was filed, the police tracked down the bank account the boy sent the money to, an account in Kolkata, West Bengal. The police registered a case and investigation is being carried out
.
Another case was registered by a 34 year old woman from Vizag. She was swindled of Rs. 46.3 lakhs by a Facebook friend. The scam promised a visa and job to the U.K.
An investigation official, V. Gopinath reported, “Recently, we sent a request to the social networking giant, Facebook, to preserve the account records and to share some concrete information about the profile.”
