Cyber offenders are targeting top-level officials, creating unrest among the bureaucrats by hacking their profiles and accounts.
“Online fraudsters are resorting to offences in several ways, including sending spam links, messages, OTPs and fake calls. They are also hacking the accounts of bureaucrats and sending deceiving links to their friends, family and other officers,” said an investigation officer.
Impersonating celebrities, political leaders and officers, fraudsters have sent out requests to people they know, demanding money citing some urgency, the Cyber Crime official said.
Recently, the scammers targeted officials in NTR and Guntur districts, by creating fake Whatsapp accounts of Collectors and the Superintendent of Police (SP). “In NTR district, the accused had created fake Whatsapp group with number +91-9801953388, with NTR District Collector S. Dilli Rao’s profile photo. The offender asked the officers to send money via Google Pay to the number 6370454573,” the Cyber Crime police said.
Officers alerted
“The fraudster had sent request to many Tahsildars (Mandal Revenue Officers), demanding money. However, a few women Tahsildars suspected the fraud as the accused had addressed them as ‘Sir’. We are verifying how many responded to the messages and how much money was sent,” the police said.
“I alerted all the Revenue Department personnel and asked them not to respond these messages. I was shocked to see my profile photos attached to the fake profiles,” Mr. Dilli Rao told The Hindu.
“We are getting many complaints on cyber crimes, including OTP frauds. We request the public not to reveal OTPs to others and click on unknown links, even if the caller insists,” officials said.
Many crimes unreported
Police are trying to find out on whose names the mobiles numbers (which were used to create the fake accounts) were registered, to which banks and whose accounts the amount was being credited and from which cities and States did they belong to. “Our investigation was leading to Delhi, Bihar, Rajasthan and other States. We will book the culprits soon,” said a police officer, adding that many cyber crimes were going unreported.
“Some mischievous persons might have resorted to such crime. We are looking into the fraud,” said Police Commissioner Kanthi Rana Tata.
