Jagtial: Cyber crooks pose as cops, fleece fertilizer traders of Rs. 90,000

. According to police, the victims Bandari Thirupathi and Harish were running fertilizer shops in Velgatoor mandal headquarters.

Jagtial: Cyber crooks allegedly fleeced Rs.90,000 from two fertilizer traders posing as cops in Velgatoor mandal on Monday. According to police, the victims Bandari Thirupathi and Harish were running fertilizer shops in Velgatoor mandal headquarters.

On Monday morning, Harish received a call from an unknown person. Stating that he was calling from the police station, the caller asked Harish to send Rs.90,000 immediately through PhonePe for the treatment of the local ASI’s daughter. Without cross checking, Harish asked Thirupathi to arrange Rs.1 lakh for online payment, in return of which the police would pay hard cash.

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Thirupathi made a call to one Kummari Venkatesh from his native village and asked him to send Rs 1 lakh online to him.

Meanwhile, the cyber fraudster, who got Thirupathi’s mobile number from Harish, contacted him directly and asked for the money. Thirupathi contacted Harish for confirmation and then send Rs.90,000 by scanning a QR code sent by the fraudster.

However, after the “police” did not given him any hard cash, Thirupathi contacted Harish and both of them tried to contact the caller, whose phone was by then switched off.

Realizing that they were cheated by cybercriminals, they approached the police and lodged a complaint with cybercrime police, who began investigation by registering the case.