Shillong, July 11: The Meghalaya Police have sent out an alert to citizens against scammers.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the police department said, “Scammers are sending emails/messages that appears (sic) to be from the Desk of the DGP, Meghalaya, attempting to deceive people and extorting money. DO NOT FALL VICTIM TO SUCH SCAMS! We urge you to remain vigilant and skeptical of such messages.”
A sample of the scamming email, which was also posted on X, said it was a summons “from the federal police office emanating from MEGPOLICE, for visiting a pornographic websites character”.
The police also asked citizens to verify the authenticity of such communications “at your nearest local police station or by dialling 112”.
Cases of scamming and social engineering increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, “Industry analysts have reported an increase of over 47 percent in the amount of broadband data usage worldwide during the March to May period in 2020… This has also reciprocated into an increase in social engineering attacks that use Internet as a medium of contacting the target”, said an NCBI report.
Recently, a professional in his thirties received a call from a person who claimed to be from the Mumbai Police Department. “The man told me that my phone number was used for illegal activities such as money laundering and human trafficking. He also said there was a non-bailable warrant against me,” he told Meghalaya Monitor.
The professional said though initially he was taken aback and was “quite nervous”, “what raised suspicion was that the man asked me to run away from my house, hide in a hotel and cooperate with the police to avoid arrest”
“He also asked me not to go to the local police. Why would the police ask me to run away if I was guilty? And why won’t the Mumbai police coordinate with the Meghalaya police,” he added.
For phishing emails, one should be careful about the mail address and check for spelling or grammatical errors in the text. For phishing calls, one is advised not to share personal details with the caller.
