Kerala lottery fraud through social media using photos of ministers

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Scam in the name of Kerala lottery through social media using government logo and minister's photo. The official result is falsified to make people believe they have won the lottery. Then they will be asked to pay GST. The message will be that the money will reach your account within minutes once you pay GST. All this through is done through WhatsApp messages.

The fraudsters have used the image of the last Onam bumper ticket release by ministers KN Balagopal and Antony Raju.

Ganapriyan, a native of Anayara Kudavoor, is the one who noticed the scam on Facebook. Ganapriyan believed it at first but realized it was a scam when they asked for money. Several pages have been started on Facebook under the name of Kerala Lottery. This will be used to advertise the availability of online ticket booking. There is a WhatsApp number to contact for online tickets. If you send a message to the number, you will be asked to pay the lottery amount of 40 rupees via Google Pay. Once this amount is paid, many numbers similar to the Kerala Lottery will be sent to you immediately. You can choose your favourite number from this. The time of draw of the government lottery is also the time of declaration of the result of fraudsters. As soon as the government's result is published on the website, the PDS file will be downloaded and tampered with and the fake ticket number chosen by paying Rs 40 will be included. Then you will receive a message that you have won the lottery. Bank account number will also be requested. After that, the message to pay GST will also reach your phone.

Ganapriyan received a message that he had won a prize of Rs. five lakh. Ganapriyan was asked to pay Rs 4200 as GST for this. When Ganapriyan asked that the money minus that amount may be sent to his account, there was no response. When he called the number, nobody picked up the phone.