A fright at the museum

Conmen are using visuals of Bengaluru’s private money museum to lure gullible people into parting with lakhs of rupees for ‘rare’, ‘collectible’ currency notes


A private museum in the city has filed a complaint with the cybercrime police after someone stole their identity and uploaded videos on YouTube claiming that the museum is buying old currency notes in exchange for money. They suspect many people may have been cheated.

The museum in question is the Rezwan Razack Museum of Paper Money, which is located inside the Prestige Falcon Towers on Brunton Road, Ashoknagar. Imtiyaz Ahmed, from the museum, filed a complaint with the Central CEN police station for identity theft. The cyber crooks who have stolen the museum’s identity, uploaded a video on their YouTube channel named Online Dost. The complaint says that the accused is using the museum’s name to cheat gullible people online. Online Dost claims to give information about “government schemes, like Modi Yojna”.

A senior officer said that the accused is suspected to have stolen the videos of the museum during their events and other programs which are available online. He said, “The location of the museum is in Bengaluru, however the videos claim that the museum is in New Delhi and seems to have targeted people from Northern states. The person in the video speaks in Hindi and asks people to leave a comment or call the number displayed on the video to sell their old five rupees currency notes for Rs. 20,000.

In three videos, the accused have used the museum’s name, logo and videos to ask people to sell their old currency to them. The accused also shows viewers chats of people who have sold old currency notes for lakhs of rupees to make them believe they’re genuine. He claims that if people are interested in visiting the museum and selling notes directly, they can check the address at the end of the video. The address given is not the Bengaluru address. Police said that people from the neighbouring states are more likely to fall prey to this scam and lose money.

A cybercrime official said that the accused would lure people to sell their old currency notes to the museum and ask them to make initial deposits of money. “People don’t realise that they are being cheated and end up giving him money from Rs 50,000 to lakhs of rupees. The channel seems to have uploaded many such videos and people are also seen engaging in the comments section with Online Dost. No museum or company will put up videos to sell or buy things. People should remember this and should not follow instructions given by unknown persons and share their personal information or send them money without verification,” he said.

Central CEN police said that no cases of people losing money have been reported from Bengaluru. They suspect that the victims could be from Northern states. The police have registered a case and investigations are on.

Executive director, Nayeem Noor said that he learnt about the video after someone forwarded it to him and enquired about the exhibition being held in New Delhi. He said, “The video claims that we are conducting an exhibition in New Delhi which is false. We hold exhibitions only in Bengaluru. Last week, someone messaged me enquiring about the currency notes and was ready to sell them to us when we informed him that we were not holding any exhibition. I was in New Delhi last Saturday and informed our managing director. After returning, I escalated it with the police.”