Fraudsters at work in WGH, SP issues warning

A Correspondent

Shillong, May 30: The West Garo Hills, Superintendent of Police, on Wednesday warned against fraudsters who are cashing on the popularity of the Television reality show ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ to cheat people of their money.

According to the Superintendent of Police (SP) of West Garo Hills Raghuvendra Kumar, recently a spam message in the form of a lottery is circulating in Whatsapp wherein the victims are provided with a lottery number and WhatsApp contact numbers usually starting with the Code 0092 or 0091 informing them that they have won a sum of Rs 25, 000 or so along with an audio message “Kaun Banega Crorepati” show.

“On calling the WhatsApp number provided, the fraudster congratulates the victim and informs the victim that their mobile number has been selected in a random draw by the reality television show and the prize money would be paid to them through their bank accounts,” Kumar informed.

According to the district police chief, the fraudsters in order to sound genuine then provides a second number to the victim claiming that they are executives of the reality television show and to call them for claiming the prize.

“When the victim call the fake executive, the fraudster under various pretexts then asks the victim to transfer money to an Indian Bank account for processing their claim.

The SP also said that one of the excuses they use is that transfers have to be made for tax payments and in another case, the fraudsters asked a victim to transfer the money if he wanted the host of “Kaun Banega Crorepati” – Amitabh Bachchan to present the lottery cheque to the victim personally.

“Citizens should not believe callers making claims of such prize money as they will say anything to scam us. If someone asks to pay or deposit money or furnish bank accounts details, do not trust them. They are frauds and they can only succeed if we divulge our personal information and account details to them,” Kumar said.

The SP said that in case of such fake lottery KBC calls, citizens should approach the police and also contact the cyber crime investigation center at Tura for assistance.