Builder loses 5.6 lakh to phishing attack

Rajkot: A 48-year-old builder living near Doshi Hospital here was duped out of Rs 5.6 lakh by an unknown person operating a WhatsApp account. The accused deceived him into divulging his debit card details and one-time passwords (OTPs) by pretending to be an employee of ICICI Bank, saying he would carry out the ‘know your customer' (KYC) procedure for the builder's account.

Ketan Kholia filed a complaint at the Rajkot Cybercrime police station under Sections 316 (2), 318 (4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and under the Information Technology Act against the person operating a certain WhatsApp number and others.

According to the FIR, the perpetrator sent Kholia a phishing link from an unknown mobile number along with an application on Feb 20. The accused then called him and told him he would have to carry out the KYC procedure, failing which his account would be closed.

The link sent to Kholia opened a page resembling that of ICICI bank. The caller directed him to enter his personal details including his Aadhaar card number, bank debit card number and mobile phone number on the phishing page. He later got Kholia to divulge the OTP sent to his phone.

On Feb 24, Kholia found his bank account empty. He then went to the branch and checked in person and learned that Rs 5,62,000 had been stolen from his account on Feb 20 in multiple transactions.