₹10.39 Lakh Gone in a Flash: How Fake Election Officials Duped Ahmedabad Resident Under the Guise of Voters' Roll Update
Summarized by AI; it may make mistakes. Check important info
Summarized by AI; it may make mistakes. Check important info
A 63-year-old corporate executive in Ahmedabad was cheated out of ₹10.39 lakh by fraudsters posing as Election Department officials, who gained remote access to his phone under the pretext of conducting an electoral roll revision.
Pravin Kumar Kasturilal Sheth, Vice-President (Marketing) at a Bavla-based healthcare firm, filed a complaint at Bopal Police Station on September 2 following the incident.
Fraudsters Used Electoral Revision Ruse
The fraud unfolded on July 24 when Sheth received a call from an individual identifying himself as Shrikant from the Election Department. The caller claimed a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process for electoral records was underway and flagged a discrepancy in the name of Sheth's father-in-law.
To establish credibility, the scammer rattled off accurate personal details of Sheth's family members before claiming that the local Booth Level Officer had instructed him to make contact. After extracting voter ID details, residential addresses, and exact name spellings, the caller promised a verification follow-up.
Phone Screen Went Black During Call
A second caller contacted Sheth shortly after. As the conversation progressed, Sheth’s mobile screen turned black and the device stopped responding to touch inputs. While keeping Sheth distracted with routine questions regarding email addresses and family spellings, the fraudsters secretly initiated high-value transactions.
Debit alerts began flashing on the screen. When confronted about the unauthorized activity, the caller denied making any withdrawals. Realising his device had been compromised, Sheth struggled to terminate the call through the frozen touchscreen and was forced to physically eject the SIM card to sever the connection.
No OTP or App Downloaded
Subsequent checks with bank customer service desks revealed that the swindlers drained ₹5.87 lakh from an HDFC Bank credit card and ₹4.52 lakh from a Federal Bank credit card, totalling ₹10.39 lakh.
Sheth maintained in his statement to the police that he had not downloaded any external application, clicked on suspicious links, or shared One-Time Passwords (OTPs) during the interactions. He immediately raised an alert on the national cybercrime helpline 1930 before lodging a formal police case.
Police Launch Cyber Tracking
Bopal Police have booked the primary suspect, Shrikant, along with an unidentified accomplice under charges of criminal conspiracy and impersonation. Investigators are currently tracing the call logs, IP routes, and financial transaction trails linked to the suspect numbers to identify how the device was remotely accessed.
