India: 65-year-old Mumbai woman duped of $154,000 by cyber scammers

A 65-year-old woman in the Indian financial capital,Mumbai, was duped ofmore than Rs 1.30 crore (approx $154,000)in an elaborate cyber fraud. The scammers pretended to be officials from various organisations and extorted money from her for over two years.

The victim, who previously resided in the city'sChandivali areaand moved to Byculla in June 2024, reportedly saidthat her troubles started in April 2023 when she met a stranger on an international dating app. The man claimed to be an American civil engineer working in the Philippines and said his name was Paul Rutherford.

Rutherford made up a story of a fatal accident at his construction site and said he needed funds to prevent deportation back to the United States, reported Hindustan Times. The woman sent him Rs 70 lakh ($83,365) in Bitcoin between April and June 2023 to help him. She also borrowed some money from her relatives to pay the fraudster, whopromised to pay her back.

In June last year, Rutherford claimed that he sent hera parcel containing $2 million after which she received a call from one Priya Sharma, who claimed to be a Delhi airport official.

Sharma said that the parcel addressed to her had been intercepted by the Customs department. She asked the victim to pay various charges to receive the parcel. The victim complied with the demands and transferred funds to different bank accounts between June 2023 and March 2024.

"The fraud didn't end there," said a police officer involved in the probe. The fraudsters tried to extort more money from the victim and posed as executives from Bank of America, who claimed to have received the funds and had sent her an ATM card.

The woman also received phone calls from people who claimed to be from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). They demanded further payments from her amounting to Rs 17 crore ($2.02 million) into various accounts as the cost of exchanging the currency from dollars to rupees.

Even after making several payments amounting to Rs 1,29,43,661 ($154,149) in total, the woman kept receiving calls from severalpeople claiming to be from various agencies or authorities. It was only then that the woman finally grew suspicious and realised that she had been scammed. The womanthen filed an FIR at the West Region Cyber police station about the incident.

"We have initiated investigation but have yet to uncover any leads to trace the fraudsters," the police officer said.

(With inputs from agencies)