PTI
New Delhi
Former Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujral was allegedly duped of Rs 7.8 crore after cyber fraudsters impersonated him on a messaging app and tricked his company’s chief financial officer into transferring funds to multiple bank accounts, the police said on Thursday.
Naresh (78) is the son of the late IK Gujral, who served as India’s 12th prime minister from 1997 to 1998.
According to the police, the fraud occurred between June 12 and June 16. The scammers allegedly created an account on an online messaging platform.
They used Gujral’s display picture to impersonate him.
They sent messages instructing one of his employees to transfer funds via Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) to a specified bank account for what appeared to be urgent business-related purposes.
Believing the instructions were legitimate, the employee, who had been given financial access by Gujral, executed four separate RTGS transactions over the course of four days, resulting in a loss of Rs 7.8 crore, the police said.
The fraud was uncovered on June 16 when the transactions came to the attention of Gujral’s daughter, who immediately verified the situation with her father and discovered that he had never issued any such directions.
“On the complaint of Naresh Gujral, an FIR has been registered on 16.06.2026. Immediate further action was taken, and Rs 4.28 crore out of the total defrauded amount of Rs 7.68 crore has been marked as a lien/hold in various banks. Efforts are being made to apprehend the persons involved in the fraud,” a senior police officer said.
Investigators said the money was first routed into four bank accounts in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, adding that between Rs 1 crore and Rs 2 crore was transferred to these accounts each.
The funds were subsequently distributed to around 30 to 40 accounts before being moved through multiple additional mule accounts in an apparent attempt to conceal the money trail, the police said.
Cyber investigators are now tracking the movement of funds and identifying the beneficiaries of the transactions.
