Guj: Portuguese bank refunds Rs 31 lakh lost by Vadodara businessman in cyber fraud

Vadodara: A Portuguese bank has refunded around Rs 31 lakh belonging to a businessman in Gujarat’s Vadodara city, who was allegedly duped by cyber fraudsters into depositing the sum, police said on Tuesday.

According to the police, the complainant Ramesh Shah had deposited Rs 31 lakh in an account of the bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos Braga’s Lisbon branch, and the sum was returned after the city cyber crime officials approached the bank and Lisbon cyber police with a request.

“A team was formed to investigate the case. Working in coordination with the SBI, we approached Portuguese bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos at its Lisbon and Mumbai branches, and the SBI’s branch in Frankfurt, Germany. We also wrote to the cyber crime police in Lisbon and requested a refund,” the cyber police said in a release.

Shah had purchased raw materials for borosilicate glass tubes from a German company and was about to deposit the payment into its official account, when he received an email from an address that closely resembled that of the German firm, it was stated.

In the email, cyber fraudsters misled Shah into believing that because of a change in global strategy, he could no longer deposit the money into the regular German bank account, and he was instead asked to make a deposit in a Portuguese bank, it said.

As per the complaint, Shah had transferred 35,673 euros (Rs 31 lakh) from his SBI account on October 8, following which on October 14, he got a letter from the German company informing him that they had not received his payment.

When the complainant approached the Mumbai branch of the German company, it denied changing its bank account details, prompting him to approach the police about the fraud, the release stated.