A 24-year-old youth recently duped an Indian Air Force officer of Rs 75,000. Using a unique modus operandi, he used fake IDs of army and paramilitary personnel on e-commerce platforms such as OLX to win over the trust of the victims, after copying the photographs from genuine Facebook and Instagram profiles. The same happened with an IAF personnel while he was trying to sell his old furniture online on the popular e-commerce platform, OLX. He was contacted by a person who claimed to be one Sahil, a constable with the CISF.

"The accused agreed to buy the furniture at the price quoted by the victim and said that since he was posted in a remote area in Rajasthan, he could not come over to make the payment or collect the item personally, and hence, he would make an advance payment through an UPI platform. Since the complainant did not have a functional app for the same, he gave the number of his sister-in-law. The accused sent an UPI link to the complainant's sister-in-law for payment, but instead of money being credited, it was debited from her account on multiple occasions," said ADCP, Cyber Crime, Anyesh Roy.