The families of NRI students in Ludhiyana are becoming the victims of swindlers. The swindlers posing as advocates phone families in Ludhiana and claim that their NRI children have been arrested for drug trafficking and need money to pay the fine and get free.
Fraudsters are increasingly targeting families whose children are studying abroad as a new tactic to defraud individuals of their hard-earned money. Swindlers masquerading as advocates phone families and claim that their children have been arrested for drug trafficking and want money to pay the fine and obtain bail, reported the Hindustan Times.
After receiving at least 12 similar complaints, the cyber cell issued an advisory.
On June 1, an anonymous caller described himself as a Canada-based lawyer and inquired about his kid, according to a Janta Nagar resident who filed a complaint with the cyber unit. “When I informed him my son is studying in Canada, he stated my son had been detained in a narcotics case and that he obtained my phone number from my son, who requested me to pay the price to bail him out,” the complainant said.
“The accused requested $3500 money to bail out my son, as well as his bank account details,” he explained. “However, when we reached our son, he (son) assured us that he was not detained.”
He further stated that after calling his (accused) bluff, he filed a police report.
According to Sub-inspector Jatinder Singh, in charge of the Ludhiana cyber unit, fraudsters acting as relatives living overseas used to make WhatsApp calls to victims, claiming that they were sending money to their account and would take it back when they returned to India. They later urged them to transfer some of the money, claiming that one of their pals needed money urgently, according to the sub-inspector.
Fraudsters devised a new approach to fool people when people learned about the scam, the sub-inspector said, adding that people should report such calls to the police right once.
