A 61-year-old fruit trader in Ahmedabad has reported a loss of Rs 5.67 lakh from his bank account after falling victim to a phishing scam. The incident occurred when he clicked on a link in a text message that claimed to be related to a traffic challan for his vehicle. Following this, he downloaded a suspicious APK file, which is a type of application package used for Android devices, leading to the unauthorized withdrawal of funds from his account, according to police sources on Sunday.
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The complainant, a resident of Makarba, stated in his FIR filed on Saturday that he received the message on Aug 22 from an unknown number. On Sep 2 morning, he noticed multiple messages showing that money had been debited from his account. Between September 1 and 2, seven IMPS transactions were allegedly made from his account to different accounts linked to NSDL Payments Bank. The transactions included amounts of Rs 67,700, Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh, with the total loss amounting to Rs 5.67 lakh.
The victim immediately reported the fraud by calling the cybercrime helpline.
He showed the messages to his brother and went to his bank’s Naroda branch, where officials allegedly told him that he had fallen victim to cyber fraud . The malicious application allegedly enabled the fraudsters to gain access to his phone and banking information, according to the complaint. The message asked him to pay the challan and contained a link. When he clicked it, an application named mParivahan.apk was downloaded on his phone. He immediately closed it and did not suspect anything was wrong. The trader subsequently approached cybercrime officials, who examined his phone and found the APK file.