An 81-year-old retiree from Bengaluru has lost Rs 1.77 crore over a period of 10 days after he fell victim to a “digital arrest” scam where fraudsters accused him of money laundering, the police said.
The senior citizen, a resident of Sadananda Nagar in Bengaluru’s NGEF Layout, filed a complaint at the East CEN police station on July 23 stating that he had been defrauded of the money between July 5 and 15.
According to the police, the complainant received a call on July 5 from a person who claimed to be Sandeep Jadhav (mobile number +91 8530628346) and introduced himself as an officer from the Colaba police station in Mumbai. The caller told him that his Aadhaar number had been used to open a bank account linked to money-laundering activities connected to Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal.
“I was told that I have been put under ‘digital arrest’ and was shown arrest warrants on WhatsApp,” the elderly man stated in his complaint. The scammers allegedly continued their psychological pressure, claiming all his money needed to be transferred to secure accounts for investigation purposes and would be returned after the probe was completed.
From July 9 onwards, the senior citizen sent money through internet banking transactions to the fraudsters’ account, unaware of the cyber fraud he had fallen victim to, according to his police complaint.
The man approached the police only after realising that he had been deceived.
The East CEN police have registered a case under sections 66 (computer-related offences), 66 (d) (impersonation for fraud), 66(c) (identity theft), and 43 (damage to computer, computer system) of the Information Technology Act and section 318 (4) (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. They are investigating the case.
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There have been a number of digital fraud cases in which scammers falsely linked their victims to the money-laundering investigation against Naresh Goyal.