A group of unknown scammers has cheated the giant vaccine makers Serum Institute of India (SII) of a whopping Rs 1 Crore by sharing fraudulent messages by the name of their CEO Adar Poonawalla, an official from the Bund Garden Police Station on the condition of anonymity informed on Saturday.
The incident was reported earlier this week after a complaint was registered from the officials of SII.
As per the police complaint, Satish Deshpande, an SII director in the finance department receive a WhatsApp message imposter self as his boss Adar Poonawalla asking to transfer money in installments to certain bank accounts.
Misled by the messages the concerned official transferred the fund amounting to a total of Rs 1.01 Crores as directed in the WhatsApp message, only to realize later that Poonawalla never asked him to send the money or sent any of such messages.
An FIR based on the complaint has been registered under various offenses of the IT Act against unidentified persons.
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On the work front earlier this month, Poonawalla had said that the SII will try to launch an Omicron-specific vaccine for COVID-19 after six months in association with the US biotechnology major Novavax.
While announcing the development he said, “The original Novovax vaccine Covovax covers omicron and there is good data for it. We will try to launch an Omicron-specific vaccine after six months,”
Poonawalla also said the research for a vaccine against monkeypox is underway and had reportedly briefed the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on the issue in a meeting on August 2.