Man poses as Gurugram Police Commissioner, seeks 'gift coupons' from officers

In Haryana, an unidentified fraudster posed as Gurugram's police commissioner Vikas Arora by using his photo as a profile picture to attempt duping multiple senior officers, officials said on Tuesday.

Conman posed as Gurugram police commissioner

According to the police, the con man sent WhatsApp messages to deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners from the commissioner's number saved on their phones. Identifying as Arora, he asked them to purchase Rs 50,000 gift vouchers and share the redemption codes.

However, the officers cross-verified among themselves and reported the suspicious November 23-24 texts instead of complying.

Case filed against accused

Following this, the cyber cell authorities lodged an FIR against an unknown accused at the city Cyber Crime Police Station over the audacious spoofing effort involving the police organisation's hierarchy.

As per the initial investigation, the fraudster downloaded and used Arora's image alongside officers' contacts from the publicly available state police website to lend credibility to requests for gift card codes eventually usable for criminal purposes.

This fraud episode highlights the need for extreme vigilance against proliferating online scams employing increasingly involving techniques to ensnare victims by impersonation.