A retired Army veteran in Pune lost nearly ₹29 lakh after falling victim to a remote-access scam via a malicious WhatsApp file posing as pension verification, underscoring the growing threat to older users.
A retired Army man in Pune district has lost ₹28.7 lakh after opening a malicious file sent via WhatsApp, in a case police say bears the hallmarks of a remote-access scam.
According to police, the 65-year-old from Shirur received a message on 11 September from an unknown number carrying a link to an APK file titled “Pension Card Verification Retired Personnel”. Thinking it related to his military pension, he downloaded and opened it on his phone. Soon afterwards, he was called by someone claiming to be a bank employee, who said he would help with pension account formalities and told him to keep the handset switched on.
Over the next few hours, the victim received multiple one-time passwords, or OTPs, on his phone. He was warned not to share them. By later that afternoon, alerts had begun arriving for unauthorised debits from both his pension and savings accounts. Police said the money was taken in nine transactions over about three hours.
The man later informed his daughter, who helped him file a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. An first information report has been registered and investigators are examining the fraud, which police believe involved malware designed to give criminals access to the device and sensitive banking details.
The case is the latest example of how scammers are exploiting trust in official-sounding pension and banking messages to trick older users into installing harmful apps. Authorities have repeatedly urged people to avoid downloading files from unknown numbers and to treat unsolicited calls claiming to represent banks or government departments with caution.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to inform and educate, not to recommend or endorse any financial product, investment or strategy. Please consider your own financial circumstances and seek professional advice where appropriate before making financial decisions.
