Cyber Police Kashmir unearths ‘AnyDesk’ online fraud

Srinagar, July 27 (IANS) The Cyber Police Kashmir on Monday unearthed a major online fraud and retrieved money which was fraudulently swindled through the AnyDesk application.

According to the details, the Cyber Police Kashmir Zone received a complaint from a person belonging to North Kashmir’s Baramulla district stating that while trying to cancel an air ticket, he lost his entire savings after dialling an Indigo Airlines call centre number that he found while searching on Google which turned out to be fake.

“He immediately received a call and was told that the refund amount could be transferred immediately via Google Pay and for this he would have to download a mobile application called AnyDesk on his cellphone. After following the directions, all the money in his bank account, amounting to Rs 5,45,000, got debited within minutes,” the police said.

The Cyber Police said that on the directions of SP, Cyber Police, Tahir Ashraf, the Financial Fraud Team of the Srinagar cell swiftly acted on the complaint.

After strenuous efforts, the Cyber Police team traced the UPI transaction details which were made by the fraudsters in 14 different transactions amounting to Rs 5,45,000.

“The fraudsters transferred the said amount through CC Avenue and PayTm Gateways that was further settled to one US based company, Melot Technologies Pvt Ltd. The matter was taken up with the said merchant and the fraudulent transactions were blocked for further use. Thereby an amount of Rs 5,45,000 was recovered and a refund process was initiated to the complainant’s source account,” the Cyber Police said.

The Cyber Police said that it had received a similar complaint wherein one complainant was duped of Rs 2,997 when he was looking for a customer care number as his refrigerator was not working and he too was made to download the same AnyDesk app on his cellphone.

“The genuine customer fraudulently lost an amount of Rs 2,997 from his bank account. While taking immediate measures, the Cyber Police successfully traced and refunded the partial amount to the complainant’s source account,” the Cyber Police said.

As per the Cyber Police, there have been several such cases over the past few months wherein fake customer care representatives asked for the customers’ bank details on the pretext of helping them. They even shared the link of an application which the customers were asked to download on their phones to get the refund.

“These scams happen when the victim opens online banking app or UPI app on their phones to do a transaction, without knowing that someone is watching,” the Cyber Police said.

The Cyber Police has advised the public that the AnyDesk application is a remote access desktop software tool which provides a third party control of the user’s device.

“People should refrain from using such apps or dialling fake helpline or customer care numbers found on Google search engine,” the Cyber Police said.

–IANS

zi/arm