An elderly woman from Thrissur, Kerala, became the victim of a shocking cyber fraud and was trapped in her own room for 36 hours after a scammer pretended to be a police officer on a video call.
The woman, named Treesa, who lives in the Meloor area, received a call from a man claiming to be a police officer. He told her that her phone number was used to make fake SIM cards for anti-national activities and said a man named Sandeep Kumar was using her identity for illegal money transfers from foreign countries.
To scare her, the scammer wore a police uniform during the video call and said she had to pay ₹2.6 lakh for the investigation. When Treesa tried to pay by cheque, the payment failed due to a KYC issue. So, she ended up sending ₹40,000 to different UPI accounts given by the fraudster.
During this time, the scammer forced her to stay locked in her room and not speak to anyone. He told her that if she contacted the real police, she could be attacked by Sandeep’s men. He even claimed that police officers were watching her from outside.
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“I was exhausted sitting inside the room for so long. After transferring the money, I told them I was feeling mentally and physically tired. That’s when they said I could rest. Then I started to feel something was wrong,” said Treesa.
Her children live abroad, and only a relative was present in the house when this happened.
Treesa has now reported the incident to the police.
