Mangaluru: Despite continuous efforts to raise awareness about cyber crime, people continue to fall prey to sophisticated scams. In the latest incident, a man from Mangaluru was defrauded of ₹35 lakh by cyber criminals.

According to sources, the fraudsters employed a common tactic, falsely claiming that a courier parcel sent by the victim contained narcotic substances and had been seized by the Mumbai Crime Branch Police.

The victim, who later filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Police Station, reported receiving a call from an individual posing as Karthik Sharma, a member of a courier service. The caller informed him that a parcel he supposedly sent from Mumbai to Taiwan was found to contain drugs and was currently in the custody of the Mumbai Crime Branch.

The fraudster then provided a contact number, instructing the victim to speak to a cyber crime officer for further clarification. Upon calling the number, the victim was connected via video call to an individual identifying himself as Pranesh Gupta, who posed as a cyber crime officer. Gupta claimed that the victim’s name had been linked to an international drug trafficking case and that he was on the verge of being arrested.

Frightened by the threat of arrest, the victim complied with the scammer’s demands, transferring a total of ₹35 lakh in multiple installments in hopes of clearing his name.

The police have launched an investigation into the case and are working to trace the culprits behind this elaborate fraud.