Online Lottery Scammers Cheat Ex-PEC Principal

Chandigarh (India) Police have reported that Sagar Sehgal, who retired after being Principal of Punjab Engineering College situated in the city, has been tricked through a lottery scam on the Internet. Deccanchronicle.com published this on May 17, 2010.

During December 2009, Sehgal got an e-mail saying he was the winner of Rs.56 Crore worth Spanish lottery.

Said Police, the e-mail asked Sehgal to provide his private details such as residential address, bank account and permanent account number.

Further, according to Mr. Rakesh Kumar, Investigating Official, after Sehgal got the e-mail, many calls came to him from across the country as well as from Spain. In all the communications, the scammers talked of the prize sum that'd be deposited in a Reserve Bank of India account and thence into his local bank account, Kumar said. Deccanchronicle.com reported this on May 17, 2010.

The scammers also told Sehgal that he must pay Rs 21,000 to process the payment, Rs 2,00,000 for converting Euro into rupees as well as Rs 4,00,000 towards the transfer of the sum from Spain to India as fees for tax-clearance. Said Sehgal that as a result of these demands, he gave away scammers Rs 23.41 Lakh.

Also, he was able to keep contact with the scammers until February 2010 because after that no one e-mailed or called him, Kumar said.

The non-response resulted in panicky so that Sehgal reported to the Police that took down the case as one related to criminal conspiracy and cheating (Sections 120B and 420 of Indian Penal Code) against the criminals.

Subsequently, early investigation results disclosed that there was indeed certain money that had been credited to various accounts across different states.

Police remarked that it sounded appalling that Sehgal deposited such a massive sum when he hadn't participated in any lottery game. The Times of India published this on May 17, 2010.

Moreover, security professionals have reiterated that netizens like Sehgal must recall that if a lottery is genuine, there's never any need for paying towards the collection of prizes. When the winning sum comes to the winner, it's only then that he pays taxes. Moreover, there aren't any further fees involved, and certainly RBI doesn't associate itself with such activities.

Related article: Online Card Fraud Shows Greater Tendency Than Chip and Pin

» SPAMfighter News - 5/26/2010