PUNE: The Yerawada police has launched an investigation after a 53-year-old Kalyaninagar resident filed a first information report (FIR) accusing a man for posing as an Army officer and cheating her of Rs1.64 lakh.
As per the complaint, the suspect, on the pretext of renting her flat, said he would transfer money to her bank account on May 27 and instead, transferred money out of her account.
“The woman, working in a private firm, had posted an advertisement on two property search portals that she wanted to rent out her flat in Rahatni.
The fraudster, posing as an Army official officer, called and said he was interested in renting the flat, claiming he was transferred to Pune,” senior inspector Yunus Shaikh said on Thursday.
Shaikh said the woman never met the suspect in person.
“He said he was in urgent need of a flat and agreed to pay the woman Rs20,000 per month as rent and a refundable deposit of Rs60,000.
He asked her to share her bank account details so that he could transfer the money,” he said.
“The woman’s son used two e-wallets and forwarded a link to a QR code to the suspect and asked him to scan it and transfer the money to his mother’s account.
However, minutes later, the woman received SMS alerts from her bank, informing her that over Rs 1.64 lakh had been debited from her account.
That was when she realised, she had been cheated,” Shaikh said.
On the delay in filing an FIR, inspector Ajay Waghmare (crime) said, “The woman had submitted complaint applications with the Yerawada and the cybercrime police.
We conducted a preliminary inquiry and registered her complaint relating to cheating under the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.” He added that the police have written to the banks concerned to share details of the transactions done.