Cybercrime Alert: Kannada -superstar Upendra, Woman Priyanka's phones hijacked; Family duped

Upendra Rao and his wife Priyanka Upendra, the top sandalwood, fell victims of a cybercrime in which offenders cut their phones and sent messages to several of their co -workers looking for money on behalf of the couple. The fraudsters first targeted Priyanka, who made an online purchase from an e-commerce platform based from Dubai and expected the same. She received a phone call at about 10am on Tuesday morning, where the caller identified himself as an executive officer of the said company and said her that the delivery partner was having trouble tracking her address. After this, the caller asked Priyanka to contact a code (*2*9279295167#) with her phone. Once she linked this code, Priyanka’s phone hacked. “I thought it was hanging up and immediately took Uppi’s phone and entered the same code and linked. His phone also hacked. I had no idea that our phones were being hacked,” Priyanka told The Times of India. Still not realizing that their phones were hijacked, Priyanka again tried to link the same code of the phone from one of their staff members and got the same result. “His phone also hacked. All three phone calls were sent to the fraudster number. They also installed WhatsApp on our numbers and started sending messages to our contacts,” Priyanka said. The fraudsters first sent a message to various contacts saying, “Hello, need help.” After the contact answered, they sent another message: “There will now be 55k in your account? I will return within 2 hours. My UPI is not working well. It’s very urgent now.” After getting this message, the couple’s son, along with three others, sent the hackers £ 55,000 each. Their own phones could not achieve this. “My son, his friends and others, at least four people, transferred the money after they tried us. My son thought his mother was in need and immediately transferred the money through UPI,” Upendra said. He later shared a video about X warning his fans about the dangers of cybercrime. After realizing the scam, the couple immediately contacted the police. “They assured us that they would catch the fraudsters. We urge people to be aware of such fraud and to recover the money. Don’t send money to anyone without verifying,” Priyanka told the publication.