Tarun
Appearances
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
My name is Tarun and I'm living in Canada, basically from India and Punjab state.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
We'll start from the beginning. One day, I woke up early, around 4 a.m., and I saw some missed calls from one of my family members, my cousin, and one from my sister. And I called my sister first, and she said, hey, where are you? And are you okay? She seemed panicked to me, and I asked her what happened. She said, okay, call your cousin. He will tell you the whole story.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
Then I called my cousin. He said, hey, are you okay? And I said, yes, I'm okay. I'm at my house. What happened? He said, somebody impersonated you and called me. and say that I'm in trouble, I'm in jail for doing something really embarrassing. So I was surprised at that moment. How could somebody involve my cousin or my relative in such kind of thing?
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
Yes, yes. Actually, after a few months, I sent him the money that he lost. He wasn't asking for it, but I thought I should pay him back because it was all from his resources. And what would happen if he sent another 90,000 rupees to the scammer who lost around all of his money? Like he has kids to raise and his family. So I thought, okay, I would send him the 40,000 rupees that he lost.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
As time passed, after several months, I got to see same stories or same scams on Facebook happening to other people as well.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
I come from the Punjab in India, and so most of the population has migrated to foreign countries like Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. And so there's hardly any person in India or in Punjab who doesn't know anybody in one of their relatives or friends who is living abroad.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
So the scammers is taking the benefit of this fact that if you go to any random person in Punjab and ask them if he or she has any relative living abroad, I don't really think that anyone would ever say no to this fact.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
In the end, when he gets the trust of the entity and he said, hey, are you alone? I want to talk to you something in private. If you're not, just get out of the house and I want to say something or I want you to do my favor.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
The thing is, Punjab is roughly divided into Pakistan and some other regions of India. So if somebody is talking in Punjabi, it's the same language as the people living on the Indian side as well.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
The scammer, he called someone and the guy on the other side of the phone, he recognized him. Hey, I know you are a scammer. You've been calling to people in such a way and collecting the money. Why would you do that? And the scammer, he just got straight forward. He said, hey, you know, everything is not going in Pakistan well. We don't get any jobs. We are like unemployed.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
So in any way, we have to get the money from the people. So this is the easiest way we can get money from the people.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
Yes, because there are some parts in the Punjab who are like on the border side of the Pakistan. So their accent in the Punjab is kind of similar. So you cannot really tell.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
Hey, I'm coming in India, Punjab in the next few months. And I want to send some money to you so that you can keep it safe. Because if I send to my family, they will just spend it all. And so the target gets some kind of confidence that, OK, he's sending me the money. So it is kind of legitimate.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
And the target says, okay, I will send you money through Western Union or any other mode of transfer, and I will let you know.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
So he gets another call and says, hey, have you got the money? He said, yes, I got the money. I got a call from the bank. So, OK, so everything going on really well. And in the end, he says, hey, I have money.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
friend living in your area maybe other side and he got into trouble and he needs some money as quick as possible so can you send him some amount of the money that i sent you earlier let's say one lakh indian rupees or two thousand dollars after a while he sends the money to the scammer and by the time the target realizes that he got scammed it's it's over it's too late for him to know
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
I get this could be a possibility, but usually I don't share a lot of details about my family on the social media. So maybe there could be another way.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
So the target, he said, no, I'm not going to fall into such a trap with you. You had to drop this. You had to drop this idea. This is not good. But the scammer said, yes, but we have to earn some money in some way. So the scammer, he asked him to do him a favor, the target.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
He said, if you could give me details of your relatives or anyone in your friend's circle, and whatever the money I will get from them, I will send you the 20 or 25% of it. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
Yes, he said, like, if you give me details of your, like, anyone in your family or anyone in friend circle, whatever the money I would get from them by scamming them, I would send you like 20 or 25% of it. So this is like a win-win situation.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
Yes. So then remember I told you that how this is, I guess this might be the way the scammer who scammed my cousin, he might have got some details about me and my cousin, maybe from my family or relatives, because I know them how they are. Not blaming them, but I think this has more possibility.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
I guess not, because if he went for the guy, there would be no help from the police, I would say. I heard from some people on Facebook, they got scammed around $10,000, $15,000 in Punjab, and they reported an FIR to the police, but I never heard any of them getting to the scammer. So I don't really think that police would ever make any effort to catch the guy.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
Even myself, I got two calls from a number in Pakistan. It has the area code of plus 92. And somebody said, hey, how are you? I said, yeah, I'm good. How are you? He said, hey, do you recognize me? I said, yes, you are that person. And I just made up some scenario. I said, hey, what happened to your wife? I heard he ran away with some other random guy. He said, oh, yes, it happened. It happened.
Darknet Diaries
138: The Mimics of Punjab
I asked him, hey, tell me how, explain me how it happened. He said, no, no, no, I will explain that to you later. Then he hung up the phone.