Engineer loses Rs 11.8 crore in Bengaluru's biggest digital arrest scam

Bengaluru: Cybercrime police in northeastern Bengaluru have launched an investigation after a 39-year-old software engineer lost a whopping Rs 11.8 crore to the digital arrest cybercrime. 

Police investigators believe this was the highest sum lost by a single individual to the scam so far in Karnataka. 

Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda said on Monday that the Northeast CEN police registered a case on December 12 and launched a probe. According to the police, the victim, Vijay Kumar KS, was held under digital arrest for over a month, from November 11 to December 12. 

Kumar told the police that he received a call from a person claiming to be from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and was told a case had been registered against him in the Mumbai crime branch regarding a SIM card in his name. 

Kumar was further told that his Aadhaar was used to open a bank account, which was used to launder around Rs 6 crore by Naresh Goyal. 

Kumar was told to use Skype for a video interrogation and was asked to remain in digital arrest. He was also told that there would be a hearing in the Supreme Court regarding the case and urged him not to inform his family as they would be in danger. 

Over the month, under duress, Kumar wired Rs 11,83,55,648 to the scamsters in multiple transactions. 

“We have begun tracing the bank accounts and the money trail,” a police investigator said.