Fraudsters impersonate senior EOW officer, attempt to trick his contact list | Bombay News

By Willie S. Morrissey Last updated Aug 29, 2022

Mumbai After Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar, Co-Commissioner of Police Pravin Padwal in charge of the economic crimes wing is the latest senior officer to fall prey to an identity theft scam.

Padwal said that on Monday afternoon he was informed by three senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officers that they had received WhatsApp messages on his behalf asking for money or Amazon gift cards.

The perpetrators used the photo of Padwal in uniform with his full name – Pravinkumar T Padwal – to create a fake profile on WhatsApp.

“I was notified about 12:30 p.m. on Monday. The scammer was trying to trick officers into sending him money or Amazon gift cards. I reported the matter to Cyber Police,” said Padwal.

Padwal also posted a message on social media warning his contacts about the attempted fraud and asking them not to fall prey to it.

The incident comes just three days after a similar scam was attempted on behalf of the Mumbai police chief. A complaint in this regard was filed with the LT Marg police station and the investigation was then transferred to the anti-extortion cell.

A Truecaller search for the number the messages were being sent from led to a Gujarat-based man named Tejalsinh Gohil. When HT contacted Gohil who said he had no idea what was going on and had never misplaced or lost his phone.

“I am the media chairman for the whole Gujarat region,” Gohil said before hanging up. His Facebook profile indicates that he is associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

However, Gohil’s WhatsApp profile still had Padwal’s photo as the display image. HT sent him a screenshot of his own display image with a query about it, but received no response.

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