70-yr-old loses Rs 40L to Facebook friends from US

A 70-year-old man lost Rs 39.73 lakh to three of his Facebook "friends" who promised to send him expensive gifts from the US.

The Whitefield resident has mentioned three people named Rev Sister Zina, Zeina and Mathew William in a police complaint. The trio had sent him friend requests on Facebook in November 2020 and claimed to be residing in the US.

After he accepted the friend requests, they somehow got his phone number and messaged him on WhatsApp.

Zina told him she was sending him some expensive gifts "in gratitude of their friendship". He was overjoyed. On November 10, 2020, he received a phone call from an unknown number. The caller introduced himself as a customs officer from Delhi and asked him to pay Rs 35,000 as "customs clearance fees". But it didn't end there. He kept asking him to pay some charge or the other. The elderly man believed him and ended up paying Rs 39.73 lakh.

But when there was no sight of the "expensive gifts", he suspected something fishy and approached the Whitefield CEN police.

A police officer said the victim had transferred the money to 21 different bank accounts given by the gang. An investigation is underway to track it down.