Thiruvananthapuram, June 11: Call it ignorance or greed.A former plumber at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram, lost a whopping Rs 55-lakh bank loan to online tricksters over the past year.
He drew the loan by mortgaging his house.
The matter came to light when he decided to rent the house.
It all started with a ‘Central Bank of India (CBI)’ letter offering a $8.5-million (around Rs 38 crore) jackpot to Surendran P. Panicker, who lives in a rented house on the city’s outskirts with wife and now practises siddha (a traditional system of medicine) for a living.
The letter bearing a smudged CBI symbol and a tiger image on top asked him to remit a conversion fund so that the amount could be transferred to his account.
Panicker, in his 60s, fell for it and sent Rs 4.6 lakh to Faiyas Khan a few days ago. The Rs 38 crore, obviously, has not come yet, but he believes it’ll soon be credited to his account with a nationalised bank here.
Panicker claims to have transferred nearly Rs 90 lakh to different agencies over the years as jackpot delivery fee or charges for ATM cards and confidential PINs giving him exclusive access to mind-boggling sums credited to him by overseas agencies.
He says he earned huge sums through online gaming in overseas casinos such as www.royalvegas.com, but the money transfer did not take place for want of cooperation by Indian authorities.
Panicker, who has exhausted earnings of his 30 years of service on online lotteries, believes local bank officials “duped” him by not transferring transaction charges to foreign accounts.
He claims to have deposited Rs 2.55 lakh in a local bank to be transferred to an agent in Delhi for an ATM credit card and PIN.
“The bank never transferred the money. I went to the ombudsman and court, but both colluded with the banker, dismissing it as an Internet fraud,” Panicker says. A senior officer with a nationalised bank here says he tried to dissuade Panicker, but to no avail.