75-year-old duped of ₹5.55 lakh in ‘emotional blackmail’ cyber fraud in Ahmedabad

Cyber criminals allegedly duped a 75-year-old man from Ahmedabad’s Old Vadaj area of ₹5.55 lakh by posing as distressed callers and using an “emotional blackmail” tactic, police said.

According to officials, Laljibhai Jadav received a call on February 10 from a man identifying himself as ‘Mohan’. Speaking in a tearful voice, the caller claimed that a payment had been mistakenly transferred to Jadav’s bank account and requested that the money be returned. He told the elderly man that his brother-in-law ‘Ashish’ would contact him to collect the amount.

Police said the fraudsters followed up with a text message falsely indicating that sums of ₹45,000 and ₹50,500 had been credited to Jadav’s account. Soon after, another person posing as Ashish sent a payment request via Google Pay.

Unaware of the scam, Jadav accepted the request and entered his PIN, resulting in money being debited from his account instead of being credited. Between February 10 and 15, a total of ₹5,55,976 was transferred online under various pretexts, police said.

The fraud came to light when Jadav grew suspicious and checked his bank statement, only to find that no money had been deposited and over ₹5.5 lakh had been withdrawn. The accused subsequently switched off their mobile phones.

A complaint has been lodged at the Cyber Crime Police Station, and further investigation is under way.