Spoofed emails dupe co. of $35,000

A 47-year-old senior import manager working with a reputed carton packaging firm has approached the Dadar police claiming that his company was duped to the tune of around Rs 26 lakhs while ordering an expensive machine for its company from abroad. The complainant identified as Dharmesh Desai who looks after the raw materials, required machinery, spare parts and import clearance task in the Prabhadevi based carton manufacturing and designing firm told the police that someone spoofed the mail id of the person he was dealing with who gave Desai, the necessary bank details for the transaction after which the accused got away with the money.

According to the police, Desai's company has its factories set up in Daman, Chakan in Pune, Mumbai, Uttarakhand, Guwahati, Assam and Andhra Pradesh. For the Chakan factory, the company required an X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer machine and accordingly, Desai began the documentation work to get the deal through with an analytical company whose channel partner was Nainesh Dhanani.

"On April 18, Desai placed the order of the required machine to Dhanani over email and he also marked the emails to the concerned executives of the Chakan plant and his company. On April 23, Desai received a mail from Dhanani's mail id which had details of the invoices, interbank account number and SWIFT code. Desai forwarded the details to the finance head and managing directors of his company who processed the payment on April 26. On May 01, Dhanani informed Desai that the payment was not received and urged him to clear it at the earliest so that the machine is delivered on time. On checking emails, Desai realised that from April 23 to April 26, someone had spoofed Dhanani's mail id and gave his bank details to get the money meant for the machine," said a police officer.

After realising that he has been duped, Desai on the behalf of his company lodged a police complaint on Friday.