Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala police fell prey to online banking fraudsters, who swindled Rs 25,000 from the cashier of the City Police Commissioner's office here on December 18.
The conmen used the usual path by sending a phishing SMS camouflaged as originating from a bank to con the victim.
The money was diverted cleverly from the account of accounts officer S Kumari Manju. The official account though is handled by cashier John.
The phishing SMS came to John’s official phone number and the unsuspecting victim exchanged the OTP number. By the time the cashier informed the control room, Rs 25,000 was withdrawn from the account. The cyber police sleuths are on the case.
The money has been routed to the bank account of cyber conmen. The modus operandi is to route that money to another account and withdraw it, cyber police said, adding they have blocked the money from being routed to another account.
