Nagaland Police warns about impersonation fraud

Our Reporter
Dimapur, May 17 (EMN): Nagaland Police has warned citizens against fraudsters who are impersonating people on social media platforms and duping the victims to make financial transactions.

Nagaland Police in a statement on Tuesday stated that fraudsters were impersonating political executives or senior government officials including police of Nagaland on WhatsApp, and would contact officials or people known to them asking for financial assistance.

The modus operandi of the scammers, it said, is to register on WhatsApp using black/fake SIM cards and use a photograph of the person being impersonated as the profile picture. They would get the name and phone number of potential victims from websites and other social media accounts (friends’ list) of the person being impersonated.

The scammers share a link of an Amazon Pay gift card to the victims, asking them to purchase the same and send the cards or the claim codes, it said.

It stated that the fraudster claims they are out of town, in a conference or meeting, or otherwise engaged and therefore need the victims to purchase the gift cards for them.

The police stated that the fraudsters were impersonating people on other social media platforms especially Facebook using the same modus operandi with the motive of asking financial assistance and defrauding innocent victims.

It therefore cautioned citizens not to give or make any financial transaction to other people without ascertaining their identities.