Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Jan 21: In a significant breakthrough, the Bengaluru cyber crime police have recovered the entire Rs 2.16 crore lost in an email spoofing fraud within the ‘golden hour’, marking the first instance of a complete recovery of a defrauded amount in a cybercrime case, officials said. The fraudster was operating from Nigeria.

Police said the fraud took place on November 4, 2025, when cyber criminals impersonated the official email ID of Keshava Group Pharmaceuticals and sent a fraudulent payment request to Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd, a Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company that has an office on MG Road in Bengaluru and is a business partner of the Keshava Group.

Misled by the spoofed email, which closely resembled the official domain of Keshava Group, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories transferred Rs 2.16 crore to a mule bank account. The company realised the fraud within minutes and immediately alerted the Cyber Crime Police.

Acting swiftly, the police traced the transaction to a private bank branch in Gujarat and instructed the bank to freeze the account. “The account was frozen within an hour of the fraud,” a senior police officer said.

Further investigation revealed that the bank account had been opened in the name of a private consultancy firm operated by a 57-year-old woman. Subsequently, a city court issued a release order, enabling the bank to return the entire defrauded amount to the victim company.

A senior officer cautioned that as official email IDs of companies are often available in the public domain, fraudsters randomly target large firms using sophisticated email spoofing techniques, and urged companies to remain vigilant.