Man duped of Rs 1 crore in Mumbai after getting email from ‘Lasren & Toubro’

Indresh Pandey

A leading merchant, thinking he was paying for scrap from Larsen & Toubro (L&T), ended up being duped of Rs 1 crore by a fraudster who had sent him an email where ‘Larsen' was spelt as ‘Lasren'. According to the Mumbai police's cyber cell, the complainant made an initial payment of Rs 5 crore in June on an account shared by L&T through a client communication email ID.

He received the scrap a few days after making the payment, but before paying the rest of his dues to L&T, he received an email from a fake ID claiming that the payment accounts had changed. "He didn't verify the details with L&T officials before initiating the payment. The fraudster had created an email account similar to the actual one," a cyber cell officer said.

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The email mentioned two bank accounts in which the complainant was asked to deposit Rs 1.5 crore. "On July 3, he made two payments totalling Rs 1 crore, out of which we managed to block the transaction of Rs 61 lakh. The remaining Rs 39 lakh had been transferred by the accused into another account," the officer stated.

During the course of the investigation, which began on July 7, the cyber cell learnt that a group of four, none of whom had criminal records, were behind the fraud. The mastermind has been identified as Indresh Pandey, 30, who has been absconding since July. The cyber cell is in the process of issuing a lookout circular against him.

The cyber cell has arrested Pandey's associates, who have been identified as Bhuvneshwar Sharma, Hemant Suliya and Abhay Patiwar.

Rs 1.5cr
Amount complainant was told to deposit