Lottery

I read it once, then twice. I wasn't imagining it - I had won the lottery! I recieved an email stating that I had hit a jackpot of ten crores. The e-mail was from a charitable trust named Apexo in London. They had mentioned that each year they selected names of people from all over the world randomly,  and organized a lucky draw in which my name had appeared this time. They had also asked for my mobile number and confirmation to which I immediately registered for the lottery.  In order to get that money, I had to deposit a hefty amount of fifty thousand rupees as shipping charges. Me and my wife, Leslie, in excitement, decided to do the needful.

Leslie opened the cupboard, took out fifty thousand rupees cash and handed it over to me. I recieved a bank account number in my SMS. I immediately went to the bank and deposited the money in their account. That night,  both Leslie and me slept peacefully with sweet dreams of becoming rich. The next day, we recieved a complimentary gift from the trust. I also got a call from the manager of the trust, mentioning that we would get our money within three days. Leslie's joy saw no bounds. She told me she was so happy and kissed me. 

Problems started to arise when the trust asked for another one lakh as tax. We didn't have enough money. I asked few of my friends but none of them were ready to help us. Bank too wasn't ready to give us loan due to lack of any security. I decided to mortgage Leslie's golden bangles in place of a loan with Leslie's approval. I went to many gold shop owners but none of them were ready to  give me one lakh. But, then I met a dreaded gangster who was ready to give me even more than one lakh.  Without any hesitation, I gave him the gold bangles, signed a form he gave and got the money and deposited it in the trust's bank account. 

My wife and me were still in dreamland, where we were rich and affluent. Meanwhile, a friend of mine called me and told me that he had joined as a crime reporter in a newspaper company and his first article was printed in today's newspaper.  I bought the newspaper and read the article. It gave me a shock! It was about the increasing number of cases of rampant email fraud. I told this to Leslie. We both get numb with panick.

I frantically tried calling the trust but no one answered the phone. One week passed, there was no sort of contact with the trust. We realised that  we we had been fooled. Leslie became extremely tensed about the money we have spent and the loan we took. In the meantime, the gangster arrived at our house to collect the interest on the gold I had kept for the mortgage. 

I pleaded to him that I would arrange the money by next week. The gangster became angry and ordered his henchmen to beat me. When Leslie tried to intervene, he threatened that if we failed to pay him the interest by next week, he would beat me black and blue. He then left our house with his henchmen. We started crying hopelessly.

Suddenly, my reporter friend came to our house to meet me and ask my review on his article. However, he found Leslie trying to hide her tears. He immediately asked me if we were facing any problems. I explained our predicament to him. He took me to the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell subdivision of the police. The officers with the help of our CPU tracked the location of the scammers. Simultaneously, we also filed a complaint against the gangster for beating me. Both the scammers and the gangster were caught by the police and put in jail. The police assured us that we would get the money we spent and the gold as soon as the case is over. Leslie and me were finally relieved that everything ended well.