A man in his early 40s was arrested on Sunday for allegedly cheating an elderly man out of around Rs 30,000 by posing as a bank official, police said.
An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said Ranjan Majhi, 40, had allegedly called an elderly man, a resident of Salt Lake, and introduced himself as a
manager of the bank where he had an account.
“Majhi told the elderly man that he needed to provide his identity card and debit card details to keep his KYC (know your customer) updated in the bank’s system,” the officer said.
The elderly resident asked him several questions, including the address of the bank’s headquarters. Majhi answered all his questions correctly and gained his trust.
“Majhi then asked him to provide his account details and the debit card number and the CVV code,” the officer said.
“After knowing the card details, Majhi siphoned off around Rs 30,000 from the elderly man’s account in multiple transactions. Each time, he asked for the OTP sent to the victim’s phone number, saying without it the KYC would not be updated and the account would be blocked. The victim divulged the OTPs as he believed he was dealing with an authorised representative of the bank.”
The victim realised that he had been duped a day later, after he checked text messages from the bank. He then lodged a complaint with the Bidhannagar Cyber Crime police station.
The complainant gave the cops the cellphone number from where he had received the call. The number was put under electronic surveillance.
“We tracked him down and arrested him from near his house in Burdwan,” the officer said.