Cybercrime alert: Kannada superstar Upendra, wife Priyanka’s phones hacked; family duped

Top Sandalwood star Upendra Rao and his wife Priyanka Upendra have fallen victims to a cybercrime in which perpetrators hacked their phones and sent messages to several of their associates seeking money on the couple's behalf.

The fraudsters first targetted Priyanka, who had made an online purchase from an e-commerce platform based out of Dubai and was expecting delivery of the same.

She received a phone call at around 10 am on Tuesday morning, where the caller identified himself as an executive of said company and told her that the delivery partner was having trouble tracing her address.

Following this, the caller asked Priyanka to dial a code (*2*9279295167#) using her phone. As soon as she dialled this code, Priyanka's phone got hacked.

"I thought it was hanging and immediately took Uppi's phone and input the same code and dialled. His phone also got hacked. I didn't have any idea that our phones were being hacked," Priyanka told the Times of India.

Still not realising that their phones have been hacked, Priyanka tried dialling the same code once again from the phone of one of their staff members and got the same result.

"His phone also got hacked. All three phone calls were forwarded to the fraudster's number. They also installed WhatsApp on our numbers and started sending messages to our contacts," Priyanka said.

The fraudsters first sent a message to several contacts in which they said, "Hi, needed some help pls."

Once the contact replied, they sent another message: “There will be 55k in your account now? I will return in just 2 hrs. My UPI is not working properly. 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 were not reachable all this while.

"My son, his friends, and others, at least four people, transferred the money after they tried reaching us. My son thought his mother was in some need and transferred the money immediately through UPI," Upendra said. He later shared a video on X warning his fans about the dangers of cybercrime.

Once they realised the scam, the couple immediately contacted the police. "They assured us they would catch the fraudsters. We request people to be aware of such frauds and recover the money. Do not send money to anyone without verifying," Priyanka told the publication.