2 min readMumbaiMar 31, 2026 01:56 PM IST
A 73-year-old retired superintendent of the central excise department in Mumbai was cheated out of Rs 3.77 lakh after a cyber fraudster, posing as a Mahanagar Gas Limited official, made him install a malicious application on his smartphone, the police said.
According to the police, the complainant lives in Mulund (East) with his wife. On March 14, he received WhatsApp messages from an unknown number claiming his gas bill was unpaid and warning that his connection would be disconnected by the evening. The message displayed the Mahanagar Gas Limited logo, which made him trust it.
Within five minutes, an unknown person called, claiming to be an executive of the gas company and insisting he update his bill according to new rules. The caller asked him to pay a nominal amount of Rs 12 and threatened to disconnect his Mahanagar Gas connection by evening if he did not update the bill. He agreed to pay Rs 12, according to his complaint.
The caller insisted that the elderly man pay with a debit card. The man received an APK file on WhatsApp and was asked to make the payment through the app. When he attempted to pay using his debit card through the app, the transaction initially failed. Within a few minutes, he started receiving alerts of multiple unauthorised transactions from his bank accounts. In 12 transactions, he lost Rs 1.37 lakh from his savings account and Rs 2.4 lakh from his pension accounts in two hours.
He immediately contacted the cyber helpline number and registered a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal 1930. Later, he visited the Navghar police station in Mulund and registered a case.
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