Sir Scam Pune Man Loses Rs 4 98 Lakh Fake Election Commission Officer

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has opened a new avenue for cyber fraudsters to dupe people of their hard-earned money. Posing as Election Commission officials, the scammers target voters, specifically elderly people, with claims of discrepancies in their records and threatening them with exclusion from the electoral rolls.

In the latest case registered on Wednesday, a man in his late 70s from Wadgaon Budruk, a suburb of Pune, lost Rs 4.98 lakh after a caller told him that there was a mismatch in his SIR records that needed to be corrected, the police said.

When the link did not work, the caller sent three APK (Android Package Kit) files claiming they were customer support and voter verification applications and persuaded the victim to download them. He was then asked to pay Rs 5 to update his data. Although the payment attempt failed, three transactions of Rs 1.50 lakh, Rs 1.99 lakh and Rs 1.49 lakh were subsequently made from his account, using the access obtained via APK files.

Android Package Kit files with .apk extension are application files used to install apps on Android devices. Cyber fraudsters often disguise malicious APK files as bank updates, traffic challans, gas or electricity connection bill payments apps and trick victims into downloading them through messaging apps or SMS links.

“It follows a classic social-engineering script: fraudsters exploit a legitimate, ongoing government exercise to create credibility, then introduce fear by claiming that the victim’s voter record has a discrepancy or may be affected. The urgency is the hook — once the victim is anxious about losing or having trouble with their voter registration, the fraudster offers an immediate solution through a link, app download, or verification process, manipulating them into giving access or directly transferring funds,” said an officer from Pune Cyber Crime police station.

The case is not an isolated incident. On August 2, a 78-year-old retired bank officer from Pashan, another suburb in Pune, was allegedly cheated of Rs 3.4 lakh after receiving a message claiming that his recently submitted SIR form had been rejected because of an error in his father’s name. The fraudsters sent him an online form which, the police said, contained a link to remote-access software rather than a genuine SIR form. He entered his identification details and e-banking credentials before money was siphoned from his account. “The complainant trusted the message because it had the initials ECI (Election Commission of India) in the header of the message,” an officer who probed the case said.

A third Pune case involving an elderly person was reported around the same time, with a retired engineer from Karvenagar allegedly losing Rs 4.43 lakh after being told that his SIR application had been rejected.

Sushant Kulkarni is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express in Pune with 12+ years of experience covering issues related to Crime, Defence, Internal Security and Courts. He has been associated with the Indian Express since July 2010. Sushant has extensively reported on law and order issues of Pune and surrounding area, Cyber crime, narcotics trade and terrorism. His coverage in the Defence beat includes operational aspects of the three services, the defence research and development and issues related to key defence establishments. He has covered several sensitive cases in the courts at Pune. Sushant is an avid photographer, plays harmonica and loves cooking. ... Read More