Another Fraud of which You should be Careful

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It is unfortunate that I need to discuss again and again some fraud attempts that are circulating in the Cyber Space in India. Here I am referring to a mail I recently received from a Netizen in Delhi for which I have given my advice as I thought fit.

However, in the interest of the Netizen's interest, it is necessary to bring this incident into public glare since the Netizen community consists of many who do not understand the risks.

Cyber Laws in India are strong enough to deal with some of these crimes but the law enforcement has its own priorities.

Most of the times, Police will not recognize a crime unless they have a complaint on hand. However in some of the cases as mentioned here in, it is dangerous for an ordinary Netizen/Citizen to file a formal complaint. The best solution is therefore for the person not to report such an incident to the Police.

Some of these frauds are such that needs to be taken as "Attempted Fraud on the Community" and without insisting on a complaint from a Citizen, the Police should pursue the case.

Most of these go beyond the capacity of the local Police to take up investigations. It is to be treated as an international fraud and pursued only by CBI.

The past experience with CBI is that Cyber Crimes really are not a priority and in some cases where a mere letter needed to be forwarded to Interpol for details of log in particulars of a customer of a foreign ISP, CBI is known to be sitting on the request for months.

Perhaps somebody can file a PIL and get the direction from a Court to initiate action on such frauds. It is only when one realizes the possible implications of such frauds to the security of the Country will the CBI realize the urgency to deal with what otherwise appears to be a routine spam or mischievous communication.

Naavi

August 04 2004

Copy of a Mail received by Naavi from a Netizen in Delhi:

The thing is like that few days ago while chatting on net , in business and finance room, I had chat with a person who claimed that he is from West Africa and working as a real estate holder. he wants to invest some money(approx. 5 million dollars) in India.

For a while we chat on those grounds. and later he gave me his phone number and address and also the procedure and my share in this business.

Earlier i thought he must be joking but now it seems as if he is pretty much serious(Well! i might be wrong). When i discussed this with my Fiance. He said why the hell he is trusting you. And do u know anything about cybercrime.

So my question is like is it possible to trap somebody in the name of business on the net. I mean how secure it is for me if I say yes to him and further proceed. Please advice as soon as possible. I am waiting for your response.
 

Regards,
XXXX


Reply sent to the Netizen:

Dear XXXX

My experience in such cases is that the offer is most likely to be a fraud.

Either it falls into the category of the Nigerian Mail fraud where you would be asked at some point of time to pay a small amount of say US 1000 to pay some bribe somwhere and that will be the extent of cheating.

There have been reported incidents of losses upto US $8000-10000 and people who were invited to meet the business contact in a foreign land and disappeared.

The second kind of angle is the havala transactions. In this type, the offer will be that the investment will be made in cash and initiatlly some US $ 50,000 will be sent with a diplomatic contact in a closed briefcase whose unlock key will be known only to you. You will be asked to receive the closed brief case at the airport from the diplomat and some body else will come to collect it from you later. You will be offered a fat commission for this.

If the Police are willing to trap such a person through their own intelligence operation then it is fine. To be identified as a person who lead to such a trap is exciting and is worth watching  in films. The flip side is that you would be dealing with an international mafia which may be into terrorism or drug trafficking and to be even seen in their company is a big risk. 

I advise you to forget and stay away.

Naavi
Na.Vijayashankar
www.naavi.org
www.cyberlawcollege.com

 



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