Sambalpur: Police are trying to find out those who are selectively targeting senior citizens and retired persons to siphon off money from their bank accounts. Police started investigations following three incidents that came to light in recent days. The victims have lost more than Rs 3 lakh from their bank accounts.
Lochan Bag has retired recently from the office of the Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC). He tried to withdraw some money at an SBI ATM near Abdul Kalam Azad Chowk. But to his utter shock and confusion, the monitor screen remained blank during the operation.
Then someone from behind approached Bag, voluntarily offering his service to help the elderly man out. Bag was told that his card was not inserted properly.
He withdrew Rs 500 with the help of the stranger. After four days he came to know from the messages he received on his mobile phone that a sum of Rs 1.60 lakh had been withdrawn from his bank account and transferred to some unknown account at a distant location.
Bag went to his bank to enquire about the fraudulent transactions and came to know from the bank officials that the amount had been transferred to an SBI account at Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.
Immediately, the bank officials requested their counterparts in Hazaribagh SBI branch to freeze the bank account but by then the entire money had already been withdrawn from that account. Bag reported the matter to the cyber police station and registered a case April 28.
In an earlier incident, Bijay Behera, also a retired government employee, lost Rs 1.26 lakh in a similar way. He registered an FIR at Dhanupali police station.
Police are investigating the cases but are yet to make any headway.
Similarly, retired Prof Nandi Pujary said Rs 60,000 had vanished from his bank account on two occasions almost a fortnight ago, as he ignorantly disclosed his ATM details to someone over phone, who posed himself as a bank official and tricked him with his convincing communication skills.
Such incidents of cyber crimes have become the order of the day, as even the educated people are not heeding the advisories given by banks, the police and the social media on how to not fall prey to cyber criminals.