Mumbai’s East Region Cyber Police have registered a fraud case after a 70-year-old retired teacher from Mulund lost ₹70,000 to a romance-style scam built around fake customs duties, then another ₹14.38 lakh when she searched online for help and clicked an advertisement for a purported recovery firm, according to Hindustan Times reporting in September 2026. Investigators describe a two-stage pattern—foreign-doctor narrative first, refund-hunter trap second—that is increasingly common among seniors living alone.
Stage one: customs duty demands
Police summaries quoted by Hindustan Times say the woman began communicating with a man who identified himself as Dr Krishna Mohan, described as a urologist based in Florida. After gaining trust, the caller claimed he could not withdraw cash abroad and asked for ₹15,000 in assistance. He later said he had been stopped at Delhi airport and needed money to clear customs duties because he was carrying U.S. dollars, prompting an additional ₹55,000 transfer—₹70,000 in total before the first scam went quiet.
The customs angle is a script, not a consignment. Fraudsters introduce a second voice posing as a customs officer, allege large undeclared cash, and demand penalties in rupees. In this case HT reported the woman grew suspicious when a fake officer sought ₹1.55 lakh and she refused further payment— but the original ₹70,000 was already gone.
Stage two: recovery advertisements
In July 2026, while searching for ways to recover the ₹70,000, the teacher encountered an online advertisement for “Luthra & Luthra Company,” presented as specialists who help cybercrime victims reclaim funds. Believing she had found legitimate counsel, she called the listed number. Callers allegedly claimed ties to a Reserve Bank of India officer who would guide refunds, then billed her for account-opening fees, GST, taxes and legal charges across multiple transfers.
By 31 August, police told HT, she had sent ₹14.38 lakh to accounts controlled by the recovery fraudsters—more than twenty times the sum she first lost. When she tried to withdraw a promised ₹6.92 lakh balance, the channel went silent and she approached the East Region Cyber Police, who registered an FIR and began tracing beneficiary accounts.
Why the pattern spreads
Cybercrime units say refund-recovery scams piggyback on search and social ads that mimic law-firm branding without any licensed relationship. Victims who already feel embarrassed about the first loss are primed to pay “processing” fees that never end. HT’s coverage stresses that legitimate police and RBI processes do not demand upfront GST on refunds through private wallets.
The Mulund case is not a story about police dismantling fake customs websites in a single raid; it is a narrative file about how fake duty portals and recovery SEO ads chain together. Aditya Banerjee’s security desk stays with what the FIR and HT reporting confirm: amounts, sequence, and agency jurisdiction— not unverified claims about named private firms beyond the advertisement the victim saw.
What investigators are doing
East Region Cyber Police are following money trails through bank accounts and payment apps, standard procedure in Maharashtra cyber cells. Officers told HT they are identifying account holders and intermediaries; no arrests were confirmed in the published reports reviewed for this story.
Mumbai police have repeated public advisories: customs duties on individuals are not collected through random UPI requests from strangers, and cyber cells do not charge citizens to “release” frozen refunds. Seniors’ helplines and 1930 cyber reporting routes remain the sanctioned paths.
How households can respond
Family members should treat any post-loss internet search for “cyber refund lawyers” as high risk. Verified legal aid flows through bar associations and official victim compensation schemes, not display ads promising RBI liaisons. Saving screenshots, UPI references, and chat logs before accounts go dormant helps investigators even when recovery is unlikely.
The confirmed record for 24 September is the FIR on file with East Region Cyber Police and HT’s account of a Mulund retiree who lost ₹70,000 to a fake customs-duty story, then ₹14.38 lakh chasing it through a recovery ad—a scam pattern Mumbai desks will keep seeing until search platforms and banks tighten ad and mule-account controls.