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Two Indian duped of over Rs 5 lakh on Ratnagiri KBC lottery fraud
Two Indian duped of over Rs 5 lakh on Ratnagiri KBC lottery fraud
April 27, 2021 Authorbaji88
In Ratnagiri town, two housewives fell for a fake Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) lottery
promising a payout last week of Rs 25 lakh. After being tricked into paying "processing
fees" to earn the refund, they lost more than Rs 5 lakh.
On 11 November, both
Kaiserbanu Kazi (43) and Rehana Bhatkar (35) received a message on WhatsApp featuring the
faces of KBC host Amitabh Bachchan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chairman Mukesh Ambani
of Reliance Industries Limited, urging them to "collect their prizes urgently." The text
messages were followed by an audio message recorded by a person pretending to be the
director of a branch of the State Bank of India in Mumbai and responsible for transferring
the lottery prize money to the winners' bank accounts. In the expectation that they would
claim their prize, both women contacted a phone number listed in the text message the
following day.
However, to be eligible to win the award, the dishonest bank manager
asked Bhatkar to pay a processing fee of Rs 12,300 and Rs 25,000 to 'convert' her savings
bank account to a current account. When the manager asked her to pay Rs 45,000 more instead
of moving the prize into her bank account, Bhatkar realized that she had been
duped.
Kazi ended up handling a total of Rs 5 lakh for "processing fees", "currency
conversion", "bank account conversion", "GST" and even a tribunal to keep the Central Bureau
of Investigation from investigating a particular group of fraudsters.
Last week, both
women filed FIRs, naming three persons in their complaints as accused: a bank manager, the
bank account holders to whom they were told to move the money.
Police station
Inspector Anil Lad of Ratnagiri City said his officers were in the process of identifying
the fraudsters. "The defendants aren't residents. We're trying to find them here,' he
said.