Garment company loses ₹14 lakh in cyber fraud

Criminal communicated with firm posing as business partner

A leading garment company fell prey to online fraud as a hacker conned its officials into transferring ₹14 lakh as advance towards supply of fabric, which never arrived.

Based on a complaint by a representative of the company, based in Yeshwantpur, the cyber crime cell has registered an FIR against an unknown person charging him under various sections of the Information Technology Act.

B. Nagendra Rao, representative of the company, said that the company requested fabric material from Argo Pantes, a business partner based in Indonesia, on April 22 .

The official email ID of the company was hacked by online fraudsters, who then created a fake email ID resembling that of the business partner and started communicating with the company from April 23. The culprit succeeded in persuading the company to transfer $20,090.50 (₹14,02,718.71) to a bank account in Peru on May 1.

The fraud came to light when the company did not get the fabric and communicated the same to its business partner.

The cyber crime police are trying to trace the hacker using the IP address where the fake mails were generated and also trailing the money transfer.