A 37-year-old homemaker from Ahmedabad’s Nikol area has allegedly fallen victim to a sophisticated cyber fraud, losing more than ₹7.46 lakh after scammers posing as Bank of India officials convinced her family to download a malicious mobile application under the guise of a KYC update.
According to the complaint, Neelam Patel received a WhatsApp message on May 19 from an unknown number claiming that her Bank of India account required urgent KYC verification. The message appeared to be an official communication from the bank and included an APK file titled “BOI Pan Card Update.apk”, purportedly meant for updating Aadhaar and PAN card details linked to the account.
Initially, the family ignored the message. However, after discussing the matter at the Bank of India’s Sardar Mall branch in Bapunagar, Patel’s husband reportedly believed the message could be genuine and later downloaded the application.
Within days, the family began receiving multiple OTPs and debit alerts linked to the bank account. On checking the account details, they discovered that several unauthorised transactions had been carried out from Patel’s savings account.
Investigators later found that the email address registered with the account had allegedly been changed from the complainant’s original Gmail ID to another email address, enabling fraudsters to gain control over account authentication and security settings.
Cybercrime officials suspect that the accused used the malicious application to steal banking credentials, intercept OTPs and manipulate account information before transferring funds through a series of transactions. The money was allegedly routed through IMPS transfers and bill payment channels.
The fraudulent transactions included transfers of ₹1.79 lakh, ₹1.95 lakh, ₹49,500, ₹1.24 lakh, ₹25,000, ₹25,000 and ₹1.48 lakh, resulting in a total loss of ₹7.46 lakh.
After discovering the fraud, the victim contacted the national cybercrime helpline 1930 and lodged a complaint through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. She also requested Bank of India to block access to the compromised account and debit card.
Police said the fraudsters allegedly impersonated bank officials, gained unauthorised access to the victim’s mobile device, obtained confidential banking details and altered account information before siphoning off the funds.
The Cyber Crime Police Station in Ahmedabad has registered a case and launched an investigation. Authorities are attempting to trace the individuals behind the WhatsApp number used in the fraud and identify the beneficiary accounts that received the stolen money.
No arrests had been made in the case at the time of reporting.