You are under 'digital arrest': All about Rs 4 crore fraud in Mumbai

For over a month, a housewife from Mumbai was placed under "digital custody" and defrauded of Rs 3.8 crore by scammers posing as law enforcement officers looking into a false money laundering case

A 77-year-old woman from Mumbai was duped of Rs 3.8 crore by cybercriminals acting as an IPS officer and other law enforcement authorities in the longest-ever “digital arrest.” In a fake money laundering case, the woman was threatened with arrest and placed under “digital arrest” for a month. 

 

The complainant is a homemaker who resides in South Mumbai with her retired husband. A phone call was the first step in the process. The scam started with a random WhatsApp call from an unidentified number.

Mumbai’s fake digital arrest: About the case 

The woman got a WhatsApp call one day informing her that the package she had shipped to Taiwan had been stopped. According to the caller, five passports, a bank card, four kg of clothing, and MDMA drugs were confiscated. According to the Mumbai Crime Branch, the cybercriminal also gave the woman a phony notice stamped by the Crime Branch to make the call appear authentic.

 

 

The caller said that the woman's Aadhaar card credentials had been used in the alleged crime and that they would need to talk with a Mumbai police officer after she retorted that she had not sent any packages to anyone. A fake police officer took over the phone right away and supported the claim that the woman's Aadhaar card was connected to an ongoing money laundering probe. 

 

To talk to a police officer, the woman was instructed to download the Skype program. She was expressly instructed not to disconnect the call or discuss the subject with anyone.

 

A man joined the line and asked for her bank account information, identifying himself as Anand Rana, an IPS officer. Before long, a second man answered the phone and introduced himself as George Mathew, an IPS from the financial department. 

 

As part of the investigation, he requested that the woman move funds to the shared bank accounts. If she was proven innocent, the scammers, who were impersonating police officers, promised to reimburse the money.

 

For a full day, the woman was asked to remain on the video call. Initially, 15 lakh rupees were transferred. The scammers would phone her again and threaten to turn on the video if the video call was interrupted for any reason. For a month, this went on. And, the woman ended up losing approx Rs 4 crore.

 

The woman became suspicious when the money was not returned, so she told her daughter about her experience, who then requested her mother to file a complaint. At that point, the issue gained attention. 

What is digital arrest?

This is emerging as a new kind of online scam where fraudsters pose as law enforcement officers defrauding gullible victims of their hard-earned money. The victims are accused of illegal activities and blackmailed through a long process, meticulously conducted to appear as genuine. The fraudsters may pose as CBI agents, income tax officers, or customs agents, and try to contact victims through phone calls. 

 

The communication usually involves video calls to make it appear as a genuine case. The victim is then threatened with a “digital arrest warrant” after accusing them of various activities such as financial misconduct, tax evasion, or other legal violations. The scammers then demand money from the victims to clear their name from these “illegal activities.”