MUMBAI: A senior income tax officer posted in Mumbai has complained that a person impersonated him on Facebook and collected money from two friends who thought they were helping him, police said on Friday.

The Gamdevi police station has registered a first information report based on the complaint lodged on behalf of principal income tax commissioner Amitabh Shukla.

Police said Shukla complained that the person, who appeared to have cloned his account, convinced two of his friends on Facebook to send ₹50,000 each in response to the SOS messages

Shukla learnt of the fraud much later when his friends contacted him to inquire about his situation. It turned out that someone cloned his Facebook friends and recently sent them messages to seek help. The person asked them to transfer the money to a new phone number, which had his photograph as the profile picture on WhatsApp.

A Gamdevi police officer said prima facie, it appeared that the fraudster accessed Shukla’s list of friends on Facebook.

“We have registered an offence under IPC 419 (impersonation) and 420 (cheating) besides under various sections of the Information Technology Act,” the police officer said. “We will seek help from South Region Cyber Cell to trace the accused,” he added.