Cyber frauds find women easy prey

Hyderabad: Cyber frauds aimed at cheating netizens of their money are an ever growing menace. Phones, email, text messages and now social media platforms are also means of effecting these frauds. The Cyberabad police worked on a case recently where women were trapped on Instagram and Facebook by their “virtual friends” on the pretext of sending gifts and cheated of Rs16 lakh.

Already this year, about 30 complaints of such “gift frauds” have been received by the police. Here, people are persuaded to deposit large amounts of money in bank accounts of the fraudsters in exchange for some gift that never materialises.

In another instance, a head constable’s daughter living in Kondapur was cheated of  Rs 8 lakh by her ‘friend’ whom she met on Instagram. The crook randomly targeted the woman and started conversations with her. 

“After several conversations, the fraudster gained the confidence of the woman and offered a gift as a token of their friendship of just three months. Two days later, he informed her that the gift parcel was held up by customs officials at an airport. Some strangers called her on the mobile phone claiming to be officials working at the airport and asked her to deposit money to release the gift sent by her friend,” said a cyber crime official.

The girl used the money from the sale of a house and paid the '8 lakh into the bank account provided by the fraudster.

In another instance, a woman from Madhapur received a “friend” request on Facebook from the crook who posed as an NRI. The conman made the woman believe him and then lured her with gifts. 

The fraudster extracted '7.68 lakh cash from the woman and vanished from the social media. 

Cyberabad cyber crime assistant commissioner of police Ch Y Srinivas Kumar said, “The gift frauds generally are committed by Nigerian nationals who trick gullible persons by gaining their confidence in the name of friendship and love. They exchange mobile numbers and talk to the victims for several days and then extract the money. 

“In most cases, the money is diverted to foreign accounts as soon as the victims deposit the money in the local bank accounts provided by the conmen making it impossible for investigators to recover it.”

Cyberabad police commissioner V.C. Sajjanar says it is greed that makes the public fall into the trap of fraudsters. “Just by believing a stranger, they are depositing huge amounts of money into the bank accounts without verifying any credentials of the online friends.” 

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