A 60-year-old businessman from south Mumbai was kept under 'digital arrest' overnight by cyber fraudsters, who posed as senior officials from law enforcement agencies and allegedly duped him of Rs 53 lakh, police said on Tuesday.
Fraudsters accused the businessman of involvement in a money laundering case and forced him to remain on a video call for the whole night, saying he had an online bail hearing in a court the next day, and also issued him a fake notice from the Supreme Court, an official said.
'Digital arrest' is a growing form of cybercrime, in which fraudsters pose as law enforcement officials or personnel of government agencies and intimidate victims through audio/video calls. They hold the victims hostage and put pressure on them to pay money.
According to the police, the victim, a resident of Agripada, received a call from an unknown number on November 2, and the caller, who identified himself as Rajiv Sinha, an officer of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), asked him to appear before the Delhi police in two hours, as a SIM card in his name was used in fraudulent activities.
When the victim showed his inability to reach Delhi, the caller told him about an offence registered against him in Delhi, and that the police would phone him.
The official said that the businessman received a video call from a man who identified himself as Vijay Khanna, an official from the Delhi police. He told the victim that his name had cropped up in a money laundering case and his Aadhaar card was used to open a bank account at a nationalised bank in Dariyagunj, Delhi.
He said fraudsters kept the victim on edge for hours, transferring the call to other men posing as senior officials, who showed him notices issued on the letterheads of "Anti-Corruption Branch", "Inspection Department" and "Director of Enforcement".
The call continued overnight as the victim was grilled about his movable and immovable assets and savings.
The fraudsters informed the victim that he was under arrest and had to remain in his room till his online bail hearing the next day, the official said.
The next day, during the "online hearing", the court denied him bail and ordered that all his bank accounts be frozen and money to be transferred to nationalised banks.
One of the fraudsters sent the victim a fake notice in the name of the Supreme Court, and details of a bank account into which the victim was forced to deposit Rs 53 lakh, police said.
When the caller demanded more money after some time, the victim realised that he had been cheated, and he managed to get out of the room on the pretext of going to the toilet and called the police helpline 1930 to alert them about the digital arrest.
He lodged a complaint at the Central Region Cyber police station, following which a case was registered, and a probe is underway, the official said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
