'Dawood Ibrahim is my chacha': Man Outwits Scammers Impersonating As Mumbai Cops

New Delhi: An online scam involving a gang of fraudsters who have been allegedly impersonating a Mumbai Police officer went viral on X (formerly Twitter). The conversation began following an investigative journalist's detailed narrative of his encounter with these "sophisticated scammers," whom he managed to outsmart by referencing underworld figure Dawood Ibrahim.

“The entire call lasted about 1 hour and I was quite convinced that it was genuine,” Saurav Das said, as he warned people in his now-viral post about the scam. One of the fraudsters, according to a screenshot shared by Saurav, also pretended to be the Mumbai cop named ‘Pradip Sawant’.

According to Das, scammers told him that Mumbai police had sent TRAI the blocking request so it would have to block all the numbers associated with his Aadhar card.

This person also shared details of the FIR with Das and ‘forwarded’ the call to ‘Andheri East police station’.

“He asked me to ask the police to send them a “clarification letter” that my original number is mine and I am not associated with the case to avoid the block. “There are a lot of identity theft going on in India” he said. That led me to the second guy who told me he’s the police SI in Mumbai Police. He took some details and said my statement would have to be recorded since I can’t be physically present in Bombay. Then I received a video call from a third guy (+91 90324 07612). He was in a police uniform and spoke good English,” Das wrote.

Pradip Sawant currently serves as the DCP Security Branch in Mumbai Police.

Das said he had the ‘first hint of doubt’ when the third ‘police officer’ had no Marathi accent.

He said the ‘third police officer’ “called his Head Constable in English and passed an order ‘to investigate my case.”

Das said he played along when the fourth guy, the ‘head constable’, recorded his ‘statement’ and asked for my Aadhaar number, which he cited wrongly.

“I wanted to see what they do with it. The guy was talking on the walkie-talkie (some good production). Apparently, I was involved in a ‘65-crore money laundering case’,” Das wrote.

“This got too funny there and honestly, cringe. ‘Kya aap kuch chhupa rahe ho hum se,’ he asked. I told him Dawood is my chacha. ‘Who Dawood?’ he wondered. ‘Dawood Ibrahim. He’s my chacha (uncle)’. I told them to piss off and that was it,” he added.