Mysuru: Despite several warnings by the City Police not to fall prey to dubious telephone calls and emails that promise gifts, two women lost about Rs. 6 lakh to fraudsters. While one woman was promised a courier that contained gold and cash, the other woman was assured of a plum job for her son abroad. Both the cases have been reported from Vidyaranyapuram.  

In the first case, Nagalakshmi, a resident of Vidyaranyapuram, lost Rs. 46,095 after she deposited the money in a particular bank account. In her complaint lodged yesterday, Nagalakshmi stated that on May 22, she received a call from a lady who claimed to be working for “overnight courier company”.

Nagalakshmi stated that the woman caller told her that she (Nagalakshmi) had received a parcel — that had valuables — through her courier company and to get the courier released,  Rs. 46,095 had to be deposited to SBI account number 36047557109.

An unsuspecting Nagalakshmi, believing that somebody had sent a ‘valuable courier’, rushed to Axis Bank on Vishvamanava Double Road at Kuvempunagar on the same day (May 22) and deposited the said amount to the account number.  

Soon after the money was deposited, Nagalakshmi received another call and the caller at the other end told her that the parcel contained gold items and a cash of 50,000 pounds. “The caller then told me that if I had to obtain the parcel, I had to deposit Rs. 2,55,000 to the same SBI account,” Nagalakshmi stated in her complaint.

Nagalakshmi told the Police that when she tried to call the number back, the phone was switched off. She told the cops that only when she found the phone switched off did she realise that she had been conned.

In another incident, S. Ashalatha, a resident of Vidyaranyapuram lodged a complaint with the Police yesterday (May 24) that she had paid Rs. 5,50,000 to an agent who worked for a recruitment company. The agent had promised a plum job in a multi-national company to her son.

Ashalatha told the Police that her son S. Yashas was a BE graduate. “One person who claimed to be representing a recruitment agency promised a high-paying job for my son abroad. We had paid Rs. 5,50,000 at different stages and the person was communicating with us through e-mail only,” the woman has stated in her complaint.

Registering both the complaints, Vidyaranyapuram Inspector Raghu has started the investigation. Call records are being examined and the banks will be asked to furnish the details of accounts.

The probe will now likely be handed over to Cyber Cell that is located atop the Jayalakshmipuram Police Station.