Karnataka DGP loses Rs 10,000 to phishing

BENGALURU: It's an embarrassment Karnataka police could well do without. The city's senior-most cop and head of the state police force lost Rs 10,000 to scamsters.

The fraud happened in April and two culprits have been arrested over the past fortnight. Interestingly, Bengaluru police have been warning citizens against falling prey to phishing scamsters and giving away bank account information to unknown callers.

DG & IGP Om Prakash, perhaps, didn't follow this advice and gave his ICICI credit card details to a fraudster who, posing as a private bank staffer, called him in mid-April.The caller told him he needed the officer's personal details for a debit card renewal. In a few minutes, he got an SMS that Rs 10,000 had been debited from his account.

Prakash approached the cyber crime police on April 21. According to sources there, investigators tracked down the suspect's mobile phone signal and arrested Deep Kumar R, a Delhi resident, on May 20.

Based on Deep Kumar's revelations, police on Saturday arrested Ashraf Ali, 26, also from Delhi. Deep and Ashraf are interstate online fraudsters booked for offences in Gujarat and Chennai.