A resident of Beniapukur in central Kolkata has been arrested from Pune for allegedly defrauding an elderly US citizen using phishing emails asking her to renew the antivirus software on her laptop.
Syed Tarique Kalam was arrested last week from a residential apartment in Pune where he was allegedly hiding fearing arrest as many of his “team members” are already behind the bars, police said.
“This man was in possession of a specific SIM card that was used for accessing an email id from where multiple phishing emails were sent to at least four elderly US nationals. These emails appeared to have been sent from a reputable antivirus software company,” said an officer of the cyber police station in Lalbazar.
The police said Kalam was part of the group that allegedly sent phishing emails to several elderly US citizens asking them to renew their antivirus software and duping them by asking them to click on suspicious links.
Based on a complaint forwarded by the FBI, Kolkata police had started probing this case and have arrested three others in connection with this case.
Two of them were arrested from Kolkata while the third was picked up from Ajmer. Kalam is the fourth person to be arrested in this case.
The victim — a 76-year-old woman in this case, who lost her life’s savings to the fraudsters — had recorded her statement before a magistrate in Alipore court last week through video conferencing that lasted close to five hours.
The police said they were looking for more members of the group who could have cheated many more persons in India and abroad.
“At least four US citizens have been cheated by this group. It is apparent that they had access to some databases of elderly persons who use computers and would fall to the bait of updating antivirus software,” said an officer in Lalbazar.
A senior officer said it was always better to access any website of a company only through its official website and not through any random link on the internet or sent through any email.
“The phishing emails sometimes look identical to the company’s original newsletters. Hence, it is difficult to distinguish them from the original ones. To avoid being cheated it is best not to click any link shared with you through any email. If you want to upgrade any software directly, visit the company’s website and make the transaction instead of through any emails or links sent to you,” said the officer.