Former principal duped of Rs.23 lakh

CHANDIGARH - Sagar Sehgal, a retired principal of the Punjab Engineering College (PEC) here, has been duped of more than Rs.23 lakh in an online lottery scam, police said Monday.

Sehgal received an email in December 2009 stating that he had won a Spanish lottery of Rs.56 crore. According to police, he was asked to submit personal details like his bank account number, permanent account number and residential address.

“He received several calls after the email from different parts of the country and even from Spain. They told him that the money would be transferred to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) from where it would be further transferred to his bank account,” said investigating officer Rakesh Kumar.

“Then he received a call from a woman who introduced herself as a senior manager in RBI. She confirmed that RBI had received the prize money. She told him to deposit Rs.2,341,000 in their account as processing fees.”

Sehgal transferred the money in nine different bank accounts. He was in touch with these people till February 2010 but after that nobody contacted him, Kumar added.

From the preliminary investigation, police have found that the bank accounts were of Mumbai and Siliguri.

“Special police teams will be sent to Mumbai and Siliguri for investigation. The details of these bank accounts will be checked. This is a serious matter and we have assigned it to our cyber crime cell,” a senior police officer said.