Himachal Pradesh Police on Sunday warned the netizens of fraudsters creating fake WhatsApp IDs of important persons and cops of the state to dupe people and cautioned them not to interact or fall into their trap.
A police official said people are receiving calls from unknown numbers feigning to be some important person or senior officer.
Mostly the caller asks for OTP on your phone or personal details. Such calls are a hoax, please do not fall prey to them. Contact your nearest police station if any such call is received. It has come to notice that mostly Nigerian or African origin persons are involved in this crime. They use VPN or double server proxy while calling or messaging from WhatsApp to commit these crimes, making it tedious and complicated to trace them, he added.
The official stated that these criminals mostly procure pre-activated SIMs and use them to create a WhatsApp account associated with that phone number. The SIM is then returned back to the vendor which is then resold to uneducated persons who use non-smart mobile phones.
They are unaware that a WhatsApp account associated with their SIM is active and being misused. Mostly these calls ask to share OTP or personal information received on mobile.
He cautioned the people to beware of this type of fake calls/messages, it is a trick to cheat and urged them to report such calls to the local police or Cyber Crime Police Station, Shimla.