SIM cloned, businessman loses Rs 10 lakh to hackers

DELHI: An east Delhi businessman was duped of Rs 10 lakh by crooks, whose modus operandi has now baffled the cops. The conmen first offered him a credit card for free and then bombarded him with phone calls.As the victim, Sanjay Jain, was trying to find ways and means to block the "unwanted" calls, he was contacted by some people claiming to be the "security officers" of his telephone service provider. They asked him to run a software on his phone. On doing so, his phone stopped working for a few days. During this period, his existing credit cards were used by the fraudsters to make online purchases.

Police have now registered an FIR on the basis of Jain's complaint. They suspect that the software run by the victim led to the cloning of his SIM card. The crooks must have received one-time passwords (OTPs) on the cloned SIM and did online shopping, cops said. 

"I received a call in the last week of December and the caller introduced himself as one Mr Sanjay . He claimed to be a representative of a private bank and offered me a credit card for free," Jain said in his complaint. "On December 30, 2016 and January 2, 2017, I received three text messages from VK-MYAMEX with links to the site of `American Express'. I was asked to login with my email ID and mail the scanned copy of PAN card and passport. Mr Sanjay also asked me to pay Rs 100 through the website as the processing fee for the card. I tried to make the payment by my credit cards, but failed."

Sanjay then told him that the transactions might have failed due to technical reasons.