State government official falls victim to cyber fraud
Kolkata: A senior official of the state government fell victim to a cyber fraud scheme. The Secretary of the State Election Commission was reportedly targeted, with fraudsters using his name to collect money. A fake Facebook account in the name of Election Commission Secretary Nilanjan Shandilya was created for this fraudulent activity. He lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime department regarding the issue.
It is alleged that this is not the first time his Facebook account has been hacked for fraudulent purposes. According to reports, a fake account was created using Shandilya’s name and image on Facebook. This fake account sent friend requests to the secretary’s known contacts. Once a request was accepted, conversations would begin on Messenger, asking the person to provide financial help, usually around Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000. The fraudsters would claim that they were facing issues while travelling and their bank account was not functioning, so they requested money to be sent to another account. They assured the person that the money would be returned in a few days. A phone number was also provided for the payment. If the victim could not provide the full amount, they were asked to send whatever they could.
Many people, seeing the name and photo of the secretary, have reportedly fallen into this trap. The police are now questioning why a high-ranking official was specifically targeted. Did the fraudsters know him personally? A senior officer from the Cyber Crime department said: “The fraudsters may indeed know the secretary. It is highly risky for them to target a secretary-level officer, which is why they likely planned the friend request, conversation, and money request in such detail.” Nilanjan Shandilya himself commented: “My name is being misused for illegal activities. My Facebook account was hacked before and I informed the police and Facebook about it. Now, the same kind of incident has occurred again. I am worried about the audacity of the fraudsters.”
