Fraudsters Cheat Rs 1 Crore from Serum Institute Posing as its CEO Poonawalla

Pune: Seven persons were arrested by Pune police today on charges of cheating the Serum Institute of India (SII) of over Rs 1.01 crore. Using WhatsApp, the cheats posed as the CEO of the company Adar Poonawalla.

As per the complaint, in September a director of the Serum Institute of India received a message on WhatsApp from a person who posed as Poonawalla. The director was asked to send money into seven different accounts.

Believing the message Rs 1.01 crore was transferred to those accounts. Later it was found that the company had been cheated.

The seven persons to whose accounts the money was transferred were arrested from different parts of the country. But the mastermind of the case is still absconding.