Digital arrest: Woman loses Rs 3.71 crore, one held in Gujarat; accused poses as 'Justice Chandrachud'

Mumbai: A man was held from Gujarat for allegedly receiving a major portion of Rs 3.71 crore siphoned off from a 68-year-old Mumbai woman in a "digital arrest" scam, a police official said on Monday.

The cyber criminals posed as personnel from Colaba police station in south Mumbai as well as Central agencies and also staged a fake online court hearing in which one person identified himself to the victim as "Justice Chandrachud", the official said.

"The victim, who stays in Andheri West, was kept under constant watch by the fraudsters who claimed she was under digital arrest in a money laundering case. The crime took place between August 18 and October 13 this year," he said.

The woman received a call on August 18 from a person who claimed he was speaking from Colaba police station in connection with her bank account being used for laundering money, the official said.

"He threatened her against disclosing the matter to anyone and sought her bank details claiming the probe was being transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The accused, posing as officer SK Jaiswal, even made the victim write a two to three page essay on her life. He then told the victim he was convinced of her innocence and would ensure she got bail," the official said.

"The cyber criminals then made her appear through video call before a person who identified himself as Justice Chandrachud. She was asked to submit her investment details for verification, resulting in her transferring Rs 3.75 crore into multiple bank accounts over a period of two months," the official informed.

However, after this, she stopped receiving calls, which convinced her that she had become a victim of online cheating.

"She approached the West Region Cyber Police Station, following which a case of cheating and other offences was registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Information Technology Act. The probe found that her money was transferred into several mule accounts, one of which was traced to Surat in Gujarat," he said.

A mule account is a bank account used by criminals to receive, transfer, or launder illicit funds with or without the knowledge of the account holder.

A cyber police team arrested one person from Surat last week, who had opened a current account for which he had set up a fake company involved in cloth trading, the official said.

"He had given this account to cyber fraudsters to park their money. For the Rs 1.71 crore that was kept in his account, he got commission of Rs 6.40 lakh from cyber fraudsters. He has revealed details of two masterminds of the racket who are currently abroad. One of them has a immigration and visa service business," the official said.

Efforts are on to nab all those involved in this racket, he added.

Digital arrest is a growing form of cybercrime in which fraudsters pose as law-enforcement officers, court officials or personnel from government agencies to intimidate victims through audio and video calls. They hold the victims hostage and put pressure on them to pay money.

Incidentally, on December 1, the Supreme Court asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to carry out a unified pan-India probe into digital-arrest cases. It also asked all states to give consent to the CBI under the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act for probing digital-arrest cases in their jurisdiction.