Naresh Gujral, son of former prime minister IK Gujral, was defrauded of ₹7.68 crores by scammers who impersonated him and tricked his company’s chief finance officer (CFO) into transferring the massive amount through at least four real-time gross settlement (RTGS) transactions last week.
After he filed a complaint, the case was handed to the Delhi Police’s special cyber crime investigation unit, Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO), which has claimed to have frozen ₹4.28 crore of the total amount so far.
“On the complaint of Naresh Gujral, an FIR was registered on June 16. Immediate action was taken and an amount of ₹4.28 crore out of the total defrauded amount of ₹7.68 crore has been marked as lien/hold in various banks. Efforts are being made to apprehend the persons involved in the fraud,” deputy commissioner of police (IFSO) Vinit Kumar told HT.
The scam reportedly took place between June 12 and 16 as the scammers posed as Naresh and hacked his WhatsApp account.
Naresh holds a chartered account degree and a Rajya Sabha member from 2007 to 2022.
Initial probe revealed that the scammers hacked into the WhatsApp account, impersonated Naresh Gujral, and tricked his employee into transferring the money, a police official told HT on the condition of anonymity.
