Bolangir: The alleged cyber crime that had led to loss of nearly Rs1 lakh from the bank accounts of a woman and her kin turned out to be a case of theft by one of the relatives of the woman.
Netranand Nayak, a son-in-law of the victim, committed the theft and tried to give it the colour of a cyber crime. However, Nayak attempted to commit suicide fearing he would be exposed. Nayak eventually died while undergoing treatment in the district headquarters hospital.
Bolangir SP Deepak Kumar said they received a complaint that Netranand of Phatakara village and his mother-in-law Bhumisuta Patel lost Rs 87,000 from their bank accounts.
According to a complaint, Shiba Patel, son of Bhumisuta, of Phatakara village under Puintala block received a phone call May 13 when the caller identified himself as the owner of a jewellery shop. He told Shiba that he had won a Rs 11,000 jackpot and he needed his bank account and PIN to transfer the money to his account.
As Shiba did not have a bank account, he passed on the account details of his brother-in-law (sister’s husband) Netrananda and that of Bhumisuta. Both Bhumisuta and Netranand had their accounts at Bhaler branch of the Utkal Gramya Bank.
When Bhumisuta and Netranand went to UGB to withdraw money May 18 to meet the marriage expenses of Shiba and his sister, they discovered that Rs 72,000 and Rs 15,000 respectively had been withdrawn from their accounts.
The police registered a case and came to know from CCTV footage that Netranand withdrew Rs 74,000 from four ATMs in the city. He withdrew the sum in nine attempts. Later, he gave it the colour of a cyber fraud.