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Beware: Traffic Police Impersonation Scams Hit Bengaluru Using VoIP | Bengaluru News

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Scamsters use VoIP, impersonate cops in extortion bid

Bengaluru: Just three days ago, Bengaluru traffic police had issued alerts regarding extortion calls targeting citizens and demanding payments over arrest threats. Now, the cops have uncovered a sophisticated scam where fraudsters are using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications to impersonate senior traffic police officials and extort money over fraudulent claims of traffic violations and hit-and-run cases.
While initially it was suspected that police landline numbers might have been hacked to place such bogus calls, investigators have now determined that the scammers were using VoIP to spoof official police phone numbers to target unsuspecting victims.
VoIP transforms voice conversations into digital signals that travel through the internet, eliminating the need for conventional telephone lines.
Further explaining this, a senior police officer involved with the investigations, said: “When an individual uses VoIP apps, there is an option of feeding a phone number that the caller would want to impersonate. When the call is made through VoIP, the receiver gets to see the caller’s number as the one fed by the caller.”
Two separate complaints were filed at the Central CEN Crime police station on Nov 21 and 22.
The first complaint registered by Padmaja MA from the DCP traffic-East office, reported scammers had targeted approximately 20 individuals across Hyderabad, Sakleshpur, and Bengaluru, using the spoofed office number of a DCP (080-22860787).
In the second case, police inspector Anil Kumar P Grampurohit reported similar fraudulent activities involving the phone numbers (080-22942276 and 080-22862222) of joint commissioner (traffic).
The scam came to light when those who received these calls contacted the police.
“We have opened helplines and email addresses to report such incidents. There is no report yet about people losing money to the fraudsters,” Kuldeep Kumar Jain, DCP (traffic-East), told TOI.
Jain further clarified that the traffic department informs vehicle owners about traffic fines and violations only through mail, formal notices, or through its official website.
The problem with probing such incidents is that these calls cannot be traced through traditional call detail records, police said, adding that the accused can be traced only once the VoIP app operator shares data about the mobile number used to feed the fake numbers.
“We are in the process of issuing notices to the apps,” the officer added.

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