Rangat woman loses ₹2.7 lakh in online fraud after fake police call

An online scam defrauded a woman from Rangat out of ₹2.7 lakh after she received a phony WhatsApp call stating her son was implicated in a criminal case. This event happened on June 22, 2025, according to the FIR filed at the Cyber Crime Police Station in Sri Vijaya Puram. A WhatsApp call came in from an unidentified number to the mother. The caller identified themselves as being from the police station and informed her that they were holding her older son. According to him, her son was implicated in a rape case that involved one of her son’s pals who had been arrested.

Additionally, the caller informed her that her son would soon be jailed and that the victim girl had passed away. The mother believed the caller’s story because she heard a voice in the background that sounded like her son’s during the call. The caller then made a demand for money, claiming that by giving a specific sum to senior officers, police personnel, and even the victim’s family as a kind of “settlement,” she might save her son. The mother was coerced into paying out of fear and was provided with multiple phone numbers that were used to send payment instructions.

Over the course of several transactions, she transferred ₹2,70,000 from various bank accounts. Later, the mother and other family members became anxious when her son failed to answer her calls. When his younger brother called after a while, the son responded and claimed he had been sleeping at home and was not aware of any such thing. Under Sections 318(4) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, the police have filed a case, and an investigation is still on.