Hello ma'am, I'm calling from FedEx. We've been alerted by police that a courier you sent to Iraq contains drugs. This was the message that sent Indian comedian Ankita Shrivastav into a nightmare tech trap. After being subjected to eight hours of video surveillance by fraudsters posing as police, she approved substantial transactions, only to discover it was all a scam. Her story, shared in a recent comedy piece, highlights the growing problem of cybercrime in India, a nation that has seen a staggering rise in digital fraud cases, with hundreds of billions lost to scams each year.
Digital Deception: How an Indian Comedian Fell Victim to a Scary Scam
Digital Deception: How an Indian Comedian Fell Victim to a Scary Scam
Ankita Shrivastav, a stand-up comedian from Mumbai, shares her harrowing experience of falling prey to a digital scam that left her financially devastated. Her story highlights the growing threat of cybercrime in India.
In October 2024, Ankita Shrivastav received a call claiming her package contained drugs, leading her into an elaborate scam where she was monitored for hours. Despite being an educated professional, she was coerced into approving transactions worth 900,000 rupees ($9,300). Shrivastav's experience sheds light on the alarming rise of cybercrime in India, where victims lost over 200 billion rupees to fraud in 2024.
