Cyber frauds dupe senior doctor at KEM of

MUMBAI: A senior resident doctor with King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital was cheated to the tune of ₹7.33 lakh by frauds, who first posed as courier company executives and later Mumbai cyber police officials. The accused even slipped in Navi-Mumbai police commissioner Milind Bharambe’s reference as they carried out the con to project a legit identity.
Curiously, Bharambe has been referenced in several cybercrimes in the recent past; and at least two such cases were reported by HT. In the present case, they showed the victim a letter issued in his name to threaten her, forced her to liquidate her fixed deposits and transfer the money in a safe bank account controlled by them, claiming that her bank accounts were compromised. She lost all her money.
The Bhoiwada police registered the complaint lodged by Dr Blessy Esther Raja Suresh Ratna Kumar Palle, 27, a resident of Sewri, on March 1.
Esther is a senior doctor in KEM Hospital’s community medicine department, where she has been working since November, 2023. She received a call from an unknown number on February 29 while she was at the hospital. The caller told her he speaking from FedEx courier.
This is how the con played out, according to investigating officers from Bhoiwada police station.
The caller told her that authorities at the Mumbai airport had intercepted a parcel in her name which contained 5 passports, 3 credit cards, 140 grams MDMA pills, 4 kilograms of clothes and a laptop, and requested her to speak to their customer care executive. The customer care transferred the call to the cyber police where she was asked about the parcel she had allegedly sent someone in Taiwan.
When Esther denied having done so, a man from the make-believe cybercrime department said if that were the case, she should register an offence. When Esther told him that she will come to their office the next day, the ‘police officer’ told her she could do it online.
“She was asked to download Skype. She then received a call from an account that bore the logo of Mumbai police, with ‘Mumbai Crime Branch’ scripted boldly. Through the 15-second video call she could see a police station-like background. Though she could not see any clear faces heard a male voice,” said a police officer.
She was informed that several fake bank accounts were opened in her name, used to fund terrorist activities, and that a terrorist had taken her name in court following which her name had been put on a list of ‘most wanted accused’. They said she could be arrested anytime and that the order of a ‘digital arrest’ was being issued right away.
(The term ‘digital arrest’ does not exist in police parlance.)
To prove his point, the fake cop sent Esther a letter signed by ‘DCP Cyber’, Milind Bharambe, and told her to go home. He called her again and asked her to stay in a hotel near her bank (HDFC), following which Esther booked a room in Hotel Midtown Pritam, in Dadar East.
“She stayed there on February 29 and returned home the next day, when she received a call from the fake police officer, who informed her that she will get a letter from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). A letter from RBI arrived from an unknown number, stating that for the money laundering case, her code was 684315 and that she would have to deposit a sum of ₹6,84,315 in RBI after which the banking regulator would verify all her bank accounts and half-an-hour later her money would be returned to her,” said the police officer from Bhoiwada police station.
The unsuspecting Esther followed the instructions and transferred the amount to the bank account referred in the ‘RBI letter.’ A little while later, when she called the fake cop to enquire why she had not received her money back from RBI, she was told that her bank accounts were being scrutinized. The fraud also asked her how much was the balance amount in her account.
“When she told him that the balance in her account was ₹76,261, he told her that she needed to file nine affidavits, as they had decided to give her a clean chit. The charge for each affidavit was ₹5,000 and therefore, she was required to pay ₹48,800, including application fee,” said the police officer.
While still on call, she reached her residence in Sewri that she shares with a roommate. She cut the call, saying she would call back, and narrated the course of events to her flatmate, who told her she was duped.
“Thereafter, the doctor approached us and based on her complaint, we have registered an offence against unknown people under sections 419 (personation for cheating), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 465 (forgery) and 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc),” said the police officer. He added that Sections 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resources) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, were also invoked in the case.
When HT reached out to Milind Bharambe, whose name was used by the frauds, he said, “We are creating awareness among people about cyber frauds, which occur every day. Frauds come up with innovative ideas to cheat people. Several gangs have been busted. Police have unearthed several cyber gangs like Jamtara or Bharatpur in Rajasthan. The accused prefer to use photos of uniformed servicemen – customs, police or defence – to cheat people.”