Truecaller Misused for Extortion in Name of Bidhannagar Police

Kolkata: A homemaker was allegedly cheated by a gang that had saved the phone number from which it called her as that of “Bidhannagar Cyber Crime police” in the Truecaller app and extorted money from her threatening arrest.

The app helps the user identify a caller even if the number from which the call has come is unknown to the receiver.

Three men have been arrested for allegedly cheating the homemaker.

Police said they received a complaint from a Baguiati resident who alleged that she received a call from an unknown number that was saved as “Bidhannagar Cyber Crime police” in Truecaller.

“The caller asked her about an EMI she had defaulted on for a loan she had taken from a finance company. She was threatened that she would be arrested if she failed to make the payment through a link sent on her mobile phone,” said an officer of the Bidhannagar police commissionerate.

Feeling threatened, she transferred Rs 18,233 through the link, the police said. “Later, she was asked for another Rs 55,000 as the final settlement of the loan,” the officer said.

However, after making the payments, the finance company from where she had taken the loan told her that the EMI she had defaulted on was yet to be paid. It was then that she realised that she had been cheated.

The woman lodged a complaint with Bidhannagar Cyber police station.

An officer of the Bidhannagar Cyber police station said it is not advisable to trust the information displayed by caller identification apps unless one can verify that the number from which a call has come is saved in the name of the person or the organisation that actually uses it.

The police zeroed in on Mithun Mondal, 23, from Gosaba, and then two others — Somnath Banerjee, 42, from Birati, and Sudipta Sarkar, 40, from Dum Dum.“It is still not known how the accused men could get information about the loan details of the woman and the amount she had defaulted on. The three accused were apparently not linked to the finance company that gave the loan,” said deputy commissioner, detective department, Bidhannagar commissionerate, Biswajit Ghosh.