The principal chief commissioner of income tax (I-T), Geetha Ravichandran, has approached police, claiming that fraudsters, using her name and photo, sent messages to her colleagues and former colleagues on WhatsApp with an intention to dupe them. This is the second instance within one month when WhatsApp hackers targeted a senior I-T officer in Mumbai.
Ravichandran, an Indian Revenue Service officer, said in her complaint that on April 26, a day after she took charge at Aaykar Bhavan in Mumbai, she received calls from some of her former colleagues in Chennai. They informed her that they had received WhasApp messages from two unknown mobile numbers, requesting them to buy an Amazon play gift card, the complainant said. Later, when her former colleagues checked the numbers – 8318597422 and 7674986327 – on Truecaller app, they were found to have been saved in her name, Ravichandran said.
On April 27, she submitted a written complaint at the south region cyber police station.
More than a month later, two of Ravichandran’s colleagues at the Mumbai I-T office received a similar message from another number on June 1. The next day, she filed a complaint at Azad Maidan police station.
“The accused had sent the message from mobile number 6388352359 and had used Ravichandran’s photo for the display picture on WhatsApp,” an officer from Azad Maidan police station said.
Police have registered an FIR against unidentified persons who used the numbers 8318597422, 7674986327, and 6388352359 to cheat people in her name. The number 6388352359 still shows Ravichandran’s photo on Truecaller.
Police are in the process of obtaining details of the users of these numbers from the service providers. The south region cyber police station is also assisting in the investigation.
Last month, principal commissioner of I-T Amitabh Shukla had filed a police complaint after a fraudster hacked into his WhatsApp account and demanded money from several of his friends, colleagues, and relatives, saying the I-T officer was in dire need of money. Two of his friends had even transferred ₹50,000 each to the fraudster.