Posing as a Belgian company, after making an email address identical to the firm's barring one letter, group dupes Kandivli-based pharmaceuticals giant into giving Rs 17.5 lakh as order payment
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One flipped letter in an e-mail ID is all it took for cyber fraudsters to cheat an Indian global pharmaceutical giant of R17.5 lakh. Posing as a customer, they asked the pharma company to divert the funds as payment for an order. An FIR was registered at Charkop police station on Tuesday, based on a complaint by an employee of ACG Pam Pharma Technologies Pvt Ltd, Shripad Vishnu Deshpande. The five-decade-old company is the second-largest manufacturer of empty hard capsules in the world. Its office is based in Kandivli.
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Studied details
According to the police, the complainant company was in contact with its Belgium-based client Neoceram SA and was using its official e-mail ID for communication. "The fraudsters studied the details of the Belgian company and created an e-mail ID similar to theirs by changing one letter in it," said a police officer.
"Later, the fraudster sent an e-mail to the complainant company on November 29, 2017, posing as their Belgian clients and instructed them to make payment for an order. In the e-mail, which looked like a real one from Neoceram, the complainant firm was instructed to make payment of R17,50,426 to another bank account on some pretext."
Flip not a flop
Not suspecting anything fishy, the complainant company made the payment. But it was in for a shock a few days later, when Neoceram informed them they have not received any payment. After an internal inquiry, it was revealed that a group of fraudsters had cracked the e-mail communication between the two companies and cheated the Indian one, by flipping one letter in the e-mail id, a trick popularly known as e-mail spoofing, said a police source.
The Charkop police have registered a case against unidentified accused under sections 419 (cheating by personation) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code, and 66 C (identity theft) and 66 D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act. Cops are trying to trace the accused by obtaining the IP address used during the offence and are in the process of writing to the service provider.
Don't be spoofed!
>> Double check e-mail ID of receiver while sending details to anyone through e-mail.
>> Call the holder of the e-mail ID for confirmation if you've been asked to make a payment before sending any money.
>> Never reply to unauthorised and suspicious e-mails offering prizes or lotteries.
>> Don't click on unknown and suspicious links, as some of them are encrypted with bugs that can gain access to your information upon being clicked.
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