Hyderabad: Fraudsters are hacking into the phones of families who have applied for minority scholarships offered by the Telangana government to scam them. After gaining access, they collect all data from the phones and then begin threatening the families, especially women, of leaking morphed pictures into the public domain.
Several complaints of such a frauds have been reported at the cybercrime police stations in Hyderabad said senior police officials.
According to the victims who did not want to be identified, in one of the cases, a person introducing himself as Khaja Mohiuddin had called a family on phone identifying himself as a government employee from the Haj House at Nampally. “He asked one of the family members to download the IMO APP on the phone. The man was telling the family all of the details of Aadhar cards, school names and all other relevant information furnished at the time of filing of online scholarships,” said the cop.
Later, the fraudster reportedly asked the family members to also share details of their Aadhar cards and other information. “When we refused to do it, the person was telling us we will not get the scholarship. After some days, he is sending photos of our family and contacts or other details and threatening us,” said one of the victims, according to a cyber crime police official from Hyderabad.
After receiving complaints the police in Hyderabad registered cases, which are being investigated. “It appears some persons had obtained the information provided by parents for online scholarships and used it to trap victims. The women from the families are threatened with the information and morphing of photos. So far no one has demanded money and the motives are being investigated,” said an official from the Hyderabad Cyber crime police department.
