Mumbai Pharma Giant Duped of Rs 22.31 Crore in International Cyber Scam

Mumbai, 7th February 2025: Mumbai-based pharmaceutical giant Alkem Laboratories fell victim to a cyber fraud amounting to ₹22.31 crore after unidentified scammers impersonated officials from its U.S. subsidiary. The fraudsters misled company representatives in Mumbai into transferring ₹51.30 crore. However, U.S. authorities later recovered and returned ₹28.98 crore of the defrauded amount, according to Mumbai police.

The fraudulent transaction took place on October 27, 2023, just two days after Alkem’s New Jersey-based subsidiary, Ascend Laboratories LLC, had remitted ₹51.30 crore to its parent company for materials supplied between November 2022 and January 2023.

Between October 27 and November 17, 2023, Alkem’s treasury operations manager, Manoj Mishra, received an email seemingly from Amit Ghare, head of international operations at Ascend Laboratories. In the email, Ghare allegedly claimed that their bank had warned of exorbitant tax implications on the payment made to Alkem on October 25, 2023, and requested a refund, promising that the amount would be resent from a different account.

The next day, Mishra received another email, this time from someone posing as Mary Smith, Ascend Laboratories’ accounting manager. The email contained details of a U.S.-based bank account where the money was to be transferred.

Mishra, after discussing the matter with senior executives, authorized the refund via a SWIFT transaction. However, the deception was only uncovered three weeks later, on November 15, 2023, when another email, again appearing to be from Ghare, requested a refund of a ₹90-crore payment allegedly made by Ascend Laboratories the previous day.

This time, a cautious Mishra asked his seniors to verify the request directly with Ghare. To their shock, Ghare denied sending any such email. Alarmed, officials at Ascend Laboratories reported the incident to the Parsippany-Troy Hills Police Department in the U.S. and engaged a cyber expert to investigate the breach. The expert discovered that Ghare’s email had been compromised, and fraudulent emails had been sent from an unauthorized server. Similarly, the emails impersonating Mary Smith originated from an address that differed from her official one by just a single character.

Following the investigation, U.S. authorities managed to recover ₹28.98 crore, which was subsequently returned to Alkem Laboratories. However, the company ultimately suffered a financial loss of ₹22.31 crore.

Mumbai police have registered a case against the unidentified cybercriminals under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery with intent to cheat), 471 (using forged documents as genuine), and 34 (common intention), along with relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act.