Telangana caught in a growing web of deceit Premium

A retired government employee loses nearly ₹1 crore to online scammers in a parcel scam, highlighting the rise of cybercrime in Telangana.

On January 2, as the echoes of New Year revelry subsided, a 78-year-old retired government employee residing in the upper-middle class neighbourhood of Bowenpally in Secunderabad saw his serene life turn upside down after he received an unexpected call at 9.05 a.m. The call lasted until 2.30 p.m., and by then, he had lost nearly ₹1 crore from his life savings.

Online scammers, posing as agents of international parcel services company, Mumbai crime branch inspectors, and CBI officers, had persuaded him to prematurely encash his fixed deposit and transfer ₹98.79 lakh to a ‘special CBI account’, which was later found to have been in Baramulla, Kashmir.

“I was shown the transaction details this account had on January 2. It was five pages long, with about 25 names per page, on that day alone. While most transactions were between ₹50,000 and ₹80,000, there were two transactions of ₹1.20 lakh and ₹1.50 lakh from Andhra Pradesh,” recalls Ramesh Rao (name changed upon request), as his wife stares blankly at him.

Parcel scam, where intruders falsely use names of global logistics and delivery companies, preys on the victim’s fears. The perpetrators typically begin a call by mentioning a ‘suspicious parcel’ containing items like drugs or passports associated with the victim’s phone number and Aadhaar card. To have their name cleared, the person is asked to provide statements via video calls and transfer funds into specified bank accounts under the guise of ‘verifying its legitimacy’. The entire process is carried out with such precision that people often end up parting with their money before realising they have been conned.

With the forged FIR copies in his name and WhatsApp photos of CBI-Mumbai, Rao had believed everything that was told to him. “When I asked the caller what to put under the description for the transaction, I was told to mention ‘real estate purchase’. I asked them why I couldn’t mention CBI, but they said it was so scammers are not alerted,” he shares.

He made the transaction but got suspicious the very next minute. He asked the caller to stay on the phone, stating that he needed to use the washroom. “I kept my phone aside, took my wife’s phone and called the manager of my bank where I have had an account for 35 years. When I shared what had happened, he immediately halted the RTGS transaction for ₹98.79 lakh. But within 20 minutes, I had lost ₹16 lakh. The rest of the money is frozen, and I am working on the legalities,” he explains.

According to officials at the Telangana State Cyber Security Bureau (TSCSB), located on the third floor of Tower-B of the swanky Integrated Command Control Centre (ICCC) in Hyderabad’s Banjara Hills, 6,520 cybercrime cases were registered in January 2024 alone. These included 2,420 cases of identity theft, 1,938 instances of business and investment fraud, 913 cases of impersonation (or cheating), 691 advertisement portal frauds, and 558 loan frauds. The financial toll amounts to ₹88 crore. Between May and December last year, the TSCSB received 89,783 complaints, leading to the registration of 14,271 FIRs. To put matters into perspective, Telangana recorded 1,099 cybercrime cases in 2018, a number that surged to 16,339 in 2023, according to the Telangana annual round-up of crime.