A city-based businessman has lodged a police complaint alleging that cyber fraudsters hacked into his Google Pay application and siphoned off nearly ₹3.25 lakh through multiple unauthorised transactions routed across several bank accounts.
The complainant, identified as Uvish Bhardwaj, a resident of Paldi and owner of Uma Flooring Tiles Company, stated that between 9.57 pm and 10.05 pm on 5 August, unknown persons gained access to his mobile phone and carried out transactions without requiring an OTP (one-time password).
According to the FIR registered at Paldi Police Station on 29 August, the fraudsters made a series of withdrawals totalling ₹3.249 lakh from Bhardwaj’s linked Bank of Baroda accounts. The transactions, he said, were not initiated by him and occurred at a time when neither his bank application nor Google Pay was functioning on his device.
The following day, Bhardwaj visited his bank to enquire about the issue, only to be informed that his accounts had been emptied. He later obtained bank statements that confirmed multiple debits, including transfers routed to accounts in Bank of Baroda’s Samawala branch, as well as several Union Bank of India accounts. The money was eventually withdrawn in cash, investigators said.
In his complaint, Bhardwaj noted that despite filing an online grievance on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) on 8 August and following up with the police and his bank, no recovery had been made so far.
He stated in his complaint that he had not shared any OTP or authorised any such payments; his phone was hacked, and the Google Pay app was misused to defraud him.
Police have registered a case of cheating and cyber fraud. Officials said that preliminary findings indicate the money was diverted through multiple accounts in quick succession before being withdrawn in cash, a common modus operandi in cyber fraud cases.