Ludhiana, May 9 -- A Ludhiana-based cloth trader from Uttar Pradesh fell victim to a sophisticated cyber fraud after scammers allegedly cloned his UPI account and siphoned off Rs.3.42 lakh.

The victim, identified as Lalman Yadav, a resident of Kabir Nagar district in Uttar Pradesh, is engaged in cloth business in Ludhiana. According to police officials, the fraudsters allegedly hacked his bank account and created a duplicate UPI profile to carry out unauthorised transactions from his savings account.

An inquiry was conducted by the Bakhira branch of the State Bank of India in Uttar Pradesh after which a complaint was lodged with the Uttar Pradesh police. A zero FIR was subsequently registered at the Bakhira police station in Sant Kabir ...