2 days ago
Court to rule on phone call scam
A man lost BD365 after entering his bank details into a fake link and handing over a one-time code to a caller posing as a BENEFIT employee.
The High Criminal Court will give its ruling on 17 June in the case of a 24-year-old Asian defendant accused of helping to carry out the fraud in May 2021.
The Public Prosecution said the man, along with an unknown accomplice, used a forged link and a phone call to gain access to the victim's card details and verification code.
The money was withdrawn from an ATM shortly after.
According to the victim's account, he received a message claiming to be from BENEFIT, asking him to update his app details.
He clicked the link and entered his bank card number and mobile number.
A short while later, he got a call from a man who said he worked for the company and asked for the one-time password to complete the update. He gave it to him.
Soon after, BD365 vanished from his account. He reported the matter to the police.
An officer told the court that the defendant was identified as the one who withdrew the money.
Further checks showed he was part of a group that opened bank accounts in Bahrain and moved the stolen funds abroad.
He had been sentenced in a similar case before and deported.
Prosecutors accused him of unlawfully gaining access to the man's banking platform using the stolen code and helping to carry out the transfer.
